BREAKFAST, PIE AND A PLACE IN TURLOCK HISTORY
At Latif’s, two counter stools commemorate a future president’s lunch. Around them is a diner with horseshoe counters, orange booths and a name that has survived changes in ownership and a long closure after a fire. Come for Swedish thins or a slice of pie; there is plenty to notice between bites.
Updated 2026.
Where it is and when to come
Latif’s by Pedretti is at 111 N. Golden State Boulevard, just north of Main Street in downtown Turlock. The restaurant’s visitor page lists Monday–Saturday, 6 a.m.–2 p.m., and Sunday, 7 a.m.–2 p.m., with a separate Friday happy hour, 2–8 p.m.
Call 209-634-5351 for pie orders or a group visit. The posted menu also advertises a remodeled banquet room and party arrangements upstairs or downstairs.
What’s on the menu
The official menu covers breakfast, lunch, children’s meals and Friday-night specials. A few items give a better picture than the word “diner” alone:
- Swedish thins: thin pancakes made with almond extract. Country-fried steak and eggs, breakfast burritos and eggs Benedict are other morning options.
- Lunch with some range: a linguica melt, French dip and patty melt sit alongside a Nashville hot chicken sandwich and bacon-habanero burger. There are wraps and salads as well.
- Pie by the slice or whole: the menu lists fruit and cream varieties, including apple, boysenberry, rhubarb, coconut and lemon. Ask which are available; whole pies can be preordered.
Friday has its own specials sheet, including linguica bites, coconut shrimp and loaded potato skins. That separate menu makes an evening visit a different outing from the early breakfast service.
The diner beside the old highway
Charles Latif opened the first Latif’s Restaurant in 1953. The restaurant’s own history dates the move into its present building to 1960, when Golden State Boulevard carried Highway 99 traffic through town.
The Journal’s account of the building’s first fifty years names Jim Shade as its designer and describes the colored glass blocks and stainless-steel kitchen that made it modern in its day. Jim Stevens, who bought into the business in 1971, had known Charles Latif through his meat-delivery work. He kept the founder’s name and expanded the pie business into takeout. In 1973, Latif’s began selling pie and coffee from a Stanislaus County Fair booth.
The Bushes’ lunch at the horseshoe counter
On October 15, 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush stopped during his presidential campaign. The Modesto Bee’s retrospective records his order: chili, a chocolate shake and apple pie. Security chose the downstairs counter rather than the upstairs banquet room; customers already inside could stay, but anyone leaving could not return. Plaques mark the stools the Bushes used.
The Pedretti connection—and the return after the fire
Nick Pedretti bought Latif’s in November 2019 after managing Dust Bowl’s downtown taproom for eight years. He is the grandson of Ezio “Atch” Pedretti, the Turlock High coach whose name appears on Pedretti Park. The family connection reaches from a familiar restaurant to a familiar ballfield.
A kitchen fire on February 7, 2021 closed the restaurant for more than two years. The Journal’s reopening report describes its return on August 24, 2023: a rebuilt kitchen and other renovations, with orange booths, commemorative stools and enlarged photographs of earlier customers preserving the room’s history.
After breakfast or lunch, follow our Main Street guide for the surrounding downtown, or explore Turlock’s history for more of the names and places behind the town.
