Pensacola 'shiny diner' marks 25 years serving homemade pie, hot coffee and hospitality

A Pensacola favorite retro diner, Scenic 90 Café, is turning a quarter of a century this June.

Starting June 1, the restaurant will be offering 25% off all lunch and dinner entrees for the entire month to celebrate.

Ever since the silver-lined “shiny diner” was plopped into Pensacola on the side of Scenic Highway by crane in 1999 it has been stitched into the fabric of the East Pensacola Heights neighborhood.

The restaurant was assembled in three parts off-site – the foyer, the dining room and kitchen – before being dropped into place in only one day.

“When people drove home from work, what was an empty lot in the morning was suddenly a full restaurant on their drive home,” said Scenic 90’s spokesperson, Arianne Pearce.

Now, regulars line up at the locked doors at 6:29 a.m. for a glass of counter-squeezed orange juice and a larger-than-life omelet. The supper crowd fills the metallic turquoise booths with their families for big, creamy bowls of Shrimp & Crawfish Savannah. Ask them why the come and they’ll share with you the same sentiment: the diner has forged its own chosen family.

Some of Mary Lou Lurton’s best memories with her grandchildren have been spent around a Scenic 90 table, where she would treat them to breakfast weekly before driving them to school, a tradition that has carried into their adulthood.

“We were laughing because you know how people say, ‘My grandmother cooks the best…’ Yeah, my kids are going to say, ‘Remember Gus’ mac and cheese?’ That's what they're going to say,” Lurton joked.

Lurton was a longtime fan of Scenic 90 owner and executive chef Gus Silivos long before Scenic 90 opened its doors. Her father worked at the tire store next door to his family’s previous restaurant, Skopelos, which became a Pensacola icon with over 61 years of service. When Silivos opened Agapi Bistro + Garden in 2021, it became her upscale dining destination.

“It’s kind of just anything he has to do with,” Lurton said. “He’s such a great guy. He’s a great person, great chef.”

Regulars like Lurton’s grandkids are among the many who order “the usual” from server Britney Ward, who has been working at Scenic 90 for almost two decades.

Her tables are full of veterans and those whose spouses have died, that instead of making a meal alone have turned the Scenic 90 counters into their dining room table.

“They have family here,” Ward said of the restaurant. “They come in to talk, they come for the conversation.”

Ward’s own family has jumped on the diner bandwagon, and even her 91-year-old grandmother makes an appearance every Thursday for the juicy Southern fried chicken for which she has waited all week.

Silivos knew Scenic 90 was going to be a family place from its inception, since it was modeled after a Greek diner in New York with many of the same homey characteristics. Which meant a massive menu and a seemingly never-ending case of sliced coconut cream pie, peanut butter pie, blueberry cobbler and cups of banana pudding, all homemade.

When it came to the restaurant's aesthetics, he leaned into the 1950s flair of checkered floors, black-and-white vintage photographs, and parfait glasses to hold the house hand-spun milkshakes.

“The people that walk in here ? they’re just kind of taken aback because they love the look,” Silivos said.

But he wanted to go beyond a gimmick and establish a reputation for the food, as well.

This is why you’ll find the comfort foods ranging from an All-American diner cheeseburger, some of the freshest fish the Gulf has to offer and Southern classics like country fried steak, chicken and dumplings, and shrimp jambalaya.

“We have the breakfast, we do have the homestyle type foods, you know, the meatloaf and the fried chicken. But then we also have, like I said, CAB steak, that ribeye steak that we do,” Silivos said. “And the other thing that has always been a big plus for us ? we have over 24 different vegetables. So, a lot of people love to get the vegetable plate because they get a variety.”

Kelli Gomez, who has worked with Silivos at Scenic 90 for 12 years, said that the people, both employees and customers, are what make the restaurant such a gem.

“It’s the memories, the customers, the same people that keep coming back,” Gomez said. “Growing with people while working here ... it’s a great community and family.”

For more real-time updates and information on Scenic 90 Café, follow the restaurant's Facebook page. Scenic 90 is located at 701 Scenic Highway in Pensacola. The restaurant can be reached at 850-433-8844.

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This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Scenic 90 Cafe celebrates 25 years in Pensacola