the cafe at shields date garden

shields date garden has been here since 1924. walk inside to the gift shop. they have an ice cream bar and make their famous date shakes.
it's a fun tourist stop that is like stepping back in time.

the tasting bar has containers of sample pieces of their date and banana breads sprinkled with walnuts, pecans or almonds.

behind the store is the cafe. it serves breakfast from 7 am to 2:30 pm they offer omelets, steak and eggs and some mexican favorites that include chilaquiles.

they also makeshieldsdate pancakes from scratch with organic eggs and flour, mixed with date butter and deglet boor dates on top.

our server jose was very nice. on the menu, lunch specials include chipotle crab cakes, ashieldssalad with deglet noor dates, dried cranberries, walnuts, pears, crumbled blue cheese and a house mango vinaigrette.

they also have date burger with sautéed deglet noor dates with bacon and melted blue cheese.

we ordered a grilled turkey w/ melted pepper jack cheese on brioche bread. the side salad was enhanced with dates.

the chef was nice to make our daughter a veggie wrap. the fresh fruit was cut in large pieces.

the ice tea was my favorite unsweetened tropical tea. finish your meal with a vanilla date shake.

lot's of free parking in front and on the side. be sure to peek inside the date theater.

lots of fun in indio, california. i read about shields, i wanted to experience it for myself. the parking lot is huge. the gift/souvenir shop is huge. there are lots of date samples. there is a theater showing a film about dates. our lunch on the patio was most pleasant. my half ashieldssalad was interesting: spinach, asian pear, mango, walnuts, blue cheese, dates and cranberries. barc had a perfectly prepared medium rare cheeseburger with salad. emily took excellent care of us. after lunch we walked through the gardens. it reminded me of the stations of the cross with several additions. it was a fun place to visit. we know a lot about growing dates....don't try it at home.

all time favorite. i've been coming here for 40 years and never tire of shields' fantastic date shakes. now, with the excellent food at the cafe,shieldsis hard to beat for price, quality and wonderful sense of tradition.

date shakes wow. our first visit toshieldswe enjoyed the history lesson on dates as we do
not grow dates in canada. we then shared a date shake, my wife has not
stopped talking about it ,we will be back.

the weekend before we went to palm springs, jake and i went to the bacon fest at the fair. normally when i go to the fair i have a whole list of things i want to get, one of them being a date shake. well, if you remember that post then you’ll know i was not able to consume one other thing and was not able to get my date shake. then i remembered that dates totally grow in the desert! and that i could probably get a date shake during our trip! and i was totally right. enter:shieldsdate garden in indio, ca. there’s no way you can missshieldswith this giant solider in a suit of armor pointing out the way. this side of the building is pretty unassuming. the other side though has got this risque looking sign talking about the romance and sex life of dates. see what they did they? dates. heh heh. of course i had to go watch it. of course. you have to walk through the whole store (which sells a variety of sweets, snacks, and of course dates) to get to the little theater in the back. it’s a