Chris E.
Yelp
A lot of buzz for the nostalgia, but, frankly, Tick Tock is every diner in NJ --- but with a shockingly MUCH smaller menu.
Recently, we finally made a trip out to Tick Tock Diner since we had heard so much buzz about it over the years and the fact that they were always ranked amongst the "best" diners in the state - depending on which outlet you viewed. On every list I looked at, it was always either Tops or Tick Tock at the very top (say that 10 times fast!). However, after we visited, it was VERRRY, VERRRRY clear to us which one deserved to be at the top.
We dropped in on a random spring Saturday at around 11:20 AM and, not to anyone's surprise, it was pretttttyy busy inside, but we were able to snag a booth seat immediately. In fact, I don't think it ever reached full capacity that morning, but it was definitely close to it.
On the outside, the diner has every bit that classic diner look you've seen in the movies - tons of silver, shiny metal with shades of red and blue and a big sign with its name for the optically challenged. On the inside, I don't know what to really make of it, but it looks like a schizophrenic partially renovated restaurant blended with a classic diner full of booths. It's clear that the diner was expanded at some point in its lifetime because of the drastic differences between the 2 dining areas.
Anyway, ONTO THE MENU. If you've frequented diners, you've probably come to know and love how gargantuan the menus typically are with a little bit of everything for everyone. They don't miss ANYTHING. And, yes, the menu here is more diverse than most restaurants, but it seriously was uncharacteristically more condensed than most diners. It was a grand total of 2 pages - the front and back of a single paper. To their credit, they also had a brunch menu too, but it was nothing extraordinary.
After mulling it over, I decided to just keep it super simple - Two Eggs Over Medium with Home Fries and Corned Beef Hash. My wife ordered the Roasted Pear Salad with Shrimp and we got the kids a Kids Mac and Cheese with Fries.
FIrst, my Two Eggs Over Medium with Home Fries and Corned Beef Hash was pretty much what it was. It was solid and hit the spot. Couldn't complain much about it. As for my wife's Pear Salad, it only came with FOUR shrimp. FOUR for $8 more. Talk about feeling robbed. To say that she was disappointed was an understatement. On top of it, the salad was pedestrian according to her. For the Kids Mac and Cheese, I had a few bites of it and it was OK. The one great thing about it was that it came out piping hot and was gooey. The fries were verrry, verrry sad though and clearly the frozen type.
Service was up and down throughout our meal. Our waiter was friendly and came by to check on us, but he couldn't accommodate cooking my home fries longer, which I love to do because it makes it extra crispy. We just never felt any love from the waitstaff and even though our waiter was relatively friendly, we also felt a bit ignored in the corner.
On a side note, the parking lot was massive, so there was plenty of parking spots. Also, the restaurant's interior is very big, hence why we didn't have to wait for a table.
To be honest, I'm not sure what the fuss is about and how Tick Tock even cracks the top 10 diners in the state. Everything was quite ordinary and NOTHING like what we think is the best diner in the state, Tops. The fact that there is so much hype around Tick Tock kind of diminishes the experience of eating here because of the expectations. If Tick Tock was just talked about like any other diner, the experience would probably exceed expectations.