Review: At Southern Belle Diner, Texas-style diner delivers all-day satisfaction

Chicken fried steak with country gravy, green chile cheese grits, and fried okra at Southern Belle Diner.

Southern Belle Diner has become an oasis of relief and respite for those of us who love chicken fried steak but cannot abide by the Cracker Barrel version.

Cody Hix, a former Special Forces operator who grew up in a Texas diner family, opened his place in Lancaster last year. His Texas-style diner standards like huevos rancheros, chicken-fried steak, and green chile cheese grits offer a welcome contrast to the eggs, potatoes, and toast-centered offerings anywhere else in Western New York.

Emily Taco, Cody Hix, and Emily Hix are the Southern Belle Diner team. (Photo: Southern Belle Diner)

Hix’s daughters Cindi Hix and Emily Taco are out front taking orders, refilling coffees, and delivering platters found nowhere else in Western New York.

Southern Belle Diner’s morning menu starts with the Eggcellent Breakfast ($9.95) – two eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns, homefries or grits, toast, and biscuit or pancake. For a paltry $2 upcharge, customers can upgrade to brisket, smoked sausage, chicken fried steak, pork chop, or ribs.

Huevos rancheros at Southern Belle Diner.

Huevos rancheros ($10.95) layers salsa and queso on tortillas, topped with eggs and more salsa, two slices of bacon, and grits, homefries, or hash browns. Breakfast tacos (2/$7.95) are sausage, bacon, or brisket, pico de gallo, hash browns, and cheese. Here, shredded hash browns are fried to a lacy golden crunch.

Pancakes or French toast in strawberry cheesecake, Southern pecan, or dulce de leche runs $10.95, with bacon or sausage. Standbys include pancakes (2/$5.95, 3/$8.95), and French toast (6/$8.95).

Chilaquiles with salsa and queso at Southern Belle Diner.

Chilaquiles ($10.99), tortilla chips sauteed briefly in salsa, topped with queso, two eggs any style, with guacamole, bacon, and refried beans.

Kids menu favorites include a Mickey pancake and bacon ($5.95), egg, hash browns, toast, bacon or sausage ($6.95), and grilled cheese sandwich with a side ($7.95).

Sides are serious at Southern Belle Diner. Fried okra, mac and cheese, hush puppies, green chile cheese grits, pinto beans, and potatoes: baked, mashed, and french-fried.

Eggs with sausage, biscuit, hash browns at Southern Belle Diner.

Barbacoa taco trio ($12.95), Mexican-style roast beef tacos, topped with creamy queso, fire roasted salsa, served with Spanish rice and refried beans, with a side. Tres Caballeros ($12.95), three brisket and smoked gouda enchiladas topped with queso and salsa, served with Spanish rice, refried beans and guacamole.

Southern style shrimp and grits ($16.95), green chile and smoked gouda grits with eight large grilled shrimp. Southern fried fish ($14.95) is crumbed and fried to golden brown, served with with tartar sauce and hushpuppies. Like Southern Belle Diner’s other platters, it comes with two sides.

Shrimp and grits at Southern Belle Diner.

Southern Belle’s barbecue is a whole nother animal. Hix offers dinners of his smoked brisket ($14.95), pork ribs ($17.95 half rack, $25.95 full), and sausage ($12.95), with two slides, pickles, onions, and grilled Texas toast.

Brisket, sausage, ribs, two sides, pickles and onions, and Texas toast runs $18.95. These are bargain prices, these days.

Chicken fried steak ($15.96), golden fried and smothered in country gravy, is a Southern staple too often represented by homogenized beef product extruded in a factory, frozen and shipped out to disappoint customers from coast to coast.

That’s real steak in the chicken fried steak at Southern Belle Diner.

Hix’s is made from pounded beef, dipped in seasoned flour and crumbs, and ried to order. With milky gravy running into the grits, punctuated by bursts of fried okra, it cured a deficiency years in the making.

Drinks include sweet or unsweet ice tea ($3.95) and Mexican hot chocolate ($5.95).

Desserts ($4.95) include Texas-sized pecan sticky buns and cinnamon rolls ($6.95), until they sell out. Hix also offers housemade Rum River cake, which is gluten-free because it’s made with cornstarch.

That’s the way it goes at Southern Belle Diner. Hix is cooking food he grew up on, not interpreting recipes he found on the Internet.

When Hix told me that a few customers complained about having to stand outside to wait for a table, I laughed, delighted. For more than a decade, hungry people waited – in the snow if necessary – for a table at Sophia’s, one of Buffalo’s greatest Greek-American diners.

That’s because Sophia’s regulars knew cooling their heels would get them a meal that made them happy to be alive, right here, right now. Sophia’s moved into its expanded space last year, with a sheltered waiting area.

Today, Southern Belle Diner has about a dozen seats. Properly encouraged, Hix and company might add more.

So if real chicken fried steak with country gravy, green chile cheese grits, and huevos rancheros with queso sounds like your cup of iced tea, don’t wait for your invitation to the debutante’s ball to meet this Southern Belle.