Jeremy B.
Yelp
From the perspective of a restaurant manager...
TLDR: All in all, it's a place where the cook definitely do not care about quality; the servers don't care about health safety, their team, or the guests; and the management does not care about hiring charismatic employees who will care about quality service.
If you are craving a Diner, avoid this one at all costs. It's gone completely down in quality over the years..
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First time in here since Covid hit. The lady who greeted our table and acted like she was the lead server ("I'll get my staff to clean that up.") told us the special, but was clueless about the portion/price.
The biggest 'W..T..F?' moment from her, in a time where restaurants are supposed to be putting health and safety first, she had her mask half on, nose uncovered, for the entirety of our visit (except for when she totally took it off on her break).
Besides looking ridiculous, she circumvented the whole point of masks.
THE SERVICE:
After the lady claiming to be the server leader boggled the greet/special descriptions, she took a drink order. Minutes go by and a very timid (and most definitely new) server comes up with the drink tray. I glance around the dining room and see the 'server leader' sitting in a booth across the restaurant eating.
Okay, yeah... I get it. Servers deserve breaks too, and if was her time, awesome. But she didn't introduce the new girl, or explain who got what drinks or what questions we had asked already. Small things.. not a huge deal... but it's starting us all off with an uncomfortable "they couldn't give two shits about us" vibe.
Server 2 had a complete lack of enthusiasm and personality. It was like being waited on by Lurch from the Addams family.
Her check back on the food happened when we were all finished (too late to fix problems that weren't apparent immediately), and she charged me for something I verbally said I did not want.
THE FOOD:
MOM: [GRILLED CHICKEN] with a side of rice and red sauce. Sure, it's just a diner.... but THE GRILLED CHICKEN IS SO BAD THAT YOU COULD ASK FOR A SIDE OF CARDBOARD TO ADD FLAVOR AND TEXTURE. It's quickly apparent that they order the precooked/processed frozen chicken with the grill marks already on it and then toss it still frozen on a flat-top, which pretty much guarantees any moisture in the chicken is almost immediately evaporated as it is cooking, leaving you with flavorless, extremely dry and tough 'chicken'.
DAD: [PATTY MELT] and a [CONEY DOG]. Coney Dog was what we in the restaurant world call 'dead food'. It was what you'd expect if you put a hot dog on a flat top for 45 minutes to an hour, nudging it so that it wouldn't exactly burn... but could break in two if you picked it up and banged it in the table. ASK FOR FRESH HOT DOGS HERE. Since the waitress returned with the second trip of food (my brother's meal), my Dad pointed it out and she replaced it. The new hot dog was undercooked.
The [PATTY MELT] was extremely dry and lukewarm, with the only moisture coming from the cheese. My brother compared it to Whoppers that would be put into the plastic warming trays at Burger King (he used to work there) that would be left over at the end of the night and unusable.
BROTHER: [SPAGHETTI]. Now... we know that Spaghettis at diners such as these (Ram's Horn, Denny's, Rex's, etc.) is normally 'meh', but we both have had it at other Leo's and.. it's normally passable.
The noodles were cooked correctly, but the sauce was like cabbage soup with ground beef in it. My brother said it tasted like the soup too. He ate about 1/4 of it, but since the waitress never checked back on his meal, he gave up on it and just wanted to go home.
ME: [CURLY FRIES] and a [CLUB SANDWICH] on wheat, with bacon extra crispy. I had to repeat to the waitress 3x that I did NOT want extra bacon, but for it to be crispy/well-done... and she charged me for extra bacon (which I had her take off).
CLUB had only 3 slices of lunchmeat-style turkey... the thin cut style? There was one single slice on one layer of the club, and two on the other. Lettuce and tomatoes were fresh. Fries were.. fries. All in all, it tasted decent, but I couldn't get over the lack of turkey. I even joked with my family that maybe they spent too much on the renovations and were trying to cut costs with portions and quality.
THINGS WE ASKED FOR BUT DIDN'T GET:
[Frank's Red Hot] and [Splenda] sweetener. We were told they didn't have hot sauce anymore, and they only had 'pink and blue' sugar packs.
..... On the way out I passed a table with BOTH Tabasco and Cholula hot sauces. At the counter where we paid they had Splenda both on the counter got carry-out coffee and behind the counter in 2 full bulk boxes.