RESTAURANT REVIEW : Chuck Wagon Cafe Dishes Up Hearty, Home-Style Breakfasts : Fare ranges from chunky country potatoes to chewy biscuits and a variety of robust omelets.

Don’t let the “Smoking” sign on the door scare you off. Or the banner in the window urging Camarillo residents to come in and sign a referendum petition urging repeal of the city’s “no smoking” ordinance.

Dorothy’s Chuck Wagon Cafe is a small place, but it isn’t--as one might expect from the signs--a dingy room full of smoke. Dorothy’s is a popular local spot to get a large, satisfying breakfast at a good price.

Lots of Dorothy’s patrons don’t smoke, but Dorothy Johnson, who has run the place for 11 years, feels that any private business should have the right to accept or reject smokers on its premises, that this is not properly an area of government concern.

Her breakfast corner seats about three dozen, with a U-shaped counter in the middle and one wall covered with Mickey Mouse and Elvis clocks for sale. On another wall is a rack where the regulars keep their coffee cups.

There’s a lunch menu, but don’t let that fool you. Even at 1:30 in the afternoon some customers are eating from the breakfast menu.

Nothing fancy about the breakfast fare. No eggs Benedict or eggs Rockefeller. No shrimp and brie omelets or breakfast champagne. This is all down-home.

The stars are dishes such as the Hungry Boy ($4.95), which gives you a choice of six strips of crisp bacon, or three sausage patties, or ham, with three eggs, a large serving of country fries and toast, biscuits or a giant pancake. The potatoes are a special surprise. They’re in chunks, fried with onions and slightly crisped. But the surprise is how firm they are, not mushy as is frequently the case.

The SOS ($4.75) dish may not appeal to purists. The original version of this dish was chipped beef on toast in gravy sauce. Dorothy’s version is the one known to millions of ex-GIs. It uses ground beef instead of chipped (salted) beef, and is very peppery. I think the lack of the chipped beef denies it a certain flavor, although there’s plenty of hamburger in it. The toast used is sourdough.

French toast ($2.95) is rich and moist, with lots of egg, and Dorothy’s biscuits are large, heavy and chewy. And--best of all--the butter is not those little blocks which have to be unwrapped, but comes soft and ready to lather onto the hot biscuits.

On the side, the homemade salsa is made of large, fresh tomato chunks, onions, tomatillos, jalapenos and V-8 juice. I’m still trying to figure out where the slightly sweet, almost smoky flavor comes from. It must be the V-8 juice. Whatever it is, it’s an excellent sauce--spicy, but not too hot.

One might bemoan the fact that the corned beef hash ($4.95) is not homemade. It comes out of a can and is then cooked to a crisp. I must confess that over the years I’ve developed a certain fondness for the canned stuff. But at the same time, I was a bit disappointed not to have been served the kind of homemade concoction that you sometimes find in these small breakfast spots.

Omelets, which come with potatoes, pancake and biscuits or toast, are large and jammed with ingredients. The Denver and cheese ($5.15) burst with crisp onions, chunks of ham and pieces of bell pepper. The ingredients are crunchy and merge nicely with the softness of the eggs and cheese, but the whole thing can use a good dose of that salsa.

Dorothy’s is the sort of place where there’s nearly always a pile of morning newspapers sitting on the counter. Next to the pile is also a large plate, piled high with Dorothy’s chocolate chip cookies.

You’d think, perhaps, that eating chocolate chip cookies after a large plate of fried eggs and potatoes is over the top. But try one, these are really good--chewy and with plenty of chocolate chips, and without that aftertaste of cooking oil.

Details

* WHAT: Dorothy’s Chuck Wagon Cafe.

* WHERE: 2344 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo.

* WHEN: Open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (breakfast only).

* COST: Meal for two, food only, $6 to $14.

* FYI: Call 987-2167.