Giusti’s

*THIS RESTAURANT IS PERMANENTLY CLOSED*

Giusti’s isn’t really on the way to anywhere. The ramshackle building is a destination eatery with a wood-plank porch that squeaks when you walk to the front door. Its lot is packed with pickup trucks every evening. You enter through the bar room, which is spectacularly decorated with well over a thousand farmers’ caps hanging overhead like some sort of multicolored tapestry, their crowns advertising every brand of fertilizer, tractor, seed, and tool that makes a country gent feel loyal.

The dining area is behind the bar – a linoleum-floor, wood-paneled space with bare tables, where local citizens congregate to eat “the usual.” For supper, that means family-style meals of minestrone soup, salad, and a salami plate followed by large portions of steak, prime rib, fried chicken, or veal cutlet, accompanied by plenty of vin ordinaire. Thursday is Italian night, featuring sausage lasagne and linguine with clam sauce.

Giusti’s a taste of robust farm-country California all too often eclipsed by the upwardly and/or downwardly mobile urban regions of the state.