Some diners are better than others. What you describe sounds horrible to me, but I like good diner food. Both DH and I are from small towns and there is a diner both places that we love to visit when we are there. In his hometown, it's a greek diner with amazing souvlaki and even better pies. In mine, it's a classic "greasy spoon" but they have a homemade green chili sauce that they use in a lot of their dishes that is amazing and just tastes like home to me. I'd recommend either of them to people traveling through these towns and I don't think they'd disappoint -- no rubbery eggs, greasy film, or fake syrup in sight.

If I'm on the road to the sort of places you might go for kid's sports, I default to chain restaurants a lot because you know what you are getting and there's usually a floor to how bad it can be. Like an Applebees in some rust belt town isn't going to be great (most of the food will probably just be heated up), but you are also unlikely to get food poisoning and the bathrooms will probably be reasonably clean.

But if I have a recommendation from a local for an actually *good* diner, I'll definitely go. As others have noted, a lot of it is comfort food that is very filling and when you are on the road, that can be just what you need.

Anonymous wrote:Yep--a legit NJ diner is the best. French toast, pancakes, pork roll, egg and cheese on a roll, bottomless coffee, greek salad with the best dressing, grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, BLT, matzah ball soup. Totally eclectic and so yum. Damn I want to go. Sorry you went to shitty diners. Like anything, there's good ones and bad ones.

And I love the Tastee Diner (gruff but great waitresses included!) but it's a different kind of diner from NJ diners. Highly recommend the country fried steak!

I guess I'm a hater but Tastee Diner is a byword for "terrible" in our family. Ate there once and it was once too many.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like all of them must have squeeze bottles full of vegetable oil that they overuse when they cook food. Makes sure nothing sticks on griddle or their pans but makes everything so freaking greasy.

It is actually a vat full of melted margarine they intermittently ladle into the griddle.

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Anonymous wrote:I have many fond memories of Greek-owned Midwestern diners with my grandmother, or with college friends. Haven’t found a great diner in DC, though Silver Diner is an interesting, healthier spin.

Those cases with the multi-layer cakes that looked so good. And all tasted like sawdust the worst possible cakes. But they had pretty much everything under the sun on the menu. Meatloaf, lo-cal diet plate (tomato with cottage cheese), crepes, eggs, pancakes, club sandwich, patty melt, etc. All was just ok, never amazing, the cakes were terrible.

I never understood those massive menus. How can one place make so many food items?!

They don’t make anything. They heat up and fry Sysco slop.

Maybe at a crappy diner. Good diners make everything in house.

Ok…but 99% of them aren’t “good diners”

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, thank you for having the courage to share this truth.

If you need an appetite supressant, take a gander at all the pictures people post of their scrapple breakfasts on the google reviews of diners in the greater philly area

I can’t help but laugh when Google and yelp reviews have the nastiest most unappealing photos of food and the reviewer says 5/5 stars excellent food! Lot of rubes just love their slop.

Agree. I don’t get it.

The worst and cheapest ingredients possible: margarine, generic bread, fake syrup, frozen hashbrowns, premade pancake mixes, canned mushrooms, American cheese (white American referred to as swiss), burnt Folgers coffee, plastic packets of cheap jam

Anonymous wrote:Frankly the food sucks. And the coffee sucks too. All the food has a greasy film. The syrup is the fake corn syrup kind. The eggs are rubbery. The bacon is always sort of chewy and undercooked. The forks feel old. We are on the road a ton for the kids’ travel sports, so we visit dozens of dinners annually, and they’re all pretty crummy.

Try the Gourmet Diner in North Miami Beach. Yum.

I personally love a diner w/ a good jukebox!

OP go get yourself some corned beef hash and a side of hash browns and a fried egg over medium, then mix it all together. Add some hot sauce and a side of sausage patties. Wash it all down with a hot black coffee and then get back to us.

Anonymous wrote:I have many fond memories of Greek-owned Midwestern diners with my grandmother, or with college friends. Haven’t found a great diner in DC, though Silver Diner is an interesting, healthier spin.

Yes. I’ve been to many of the same in Midwest. A lot were quite good and most had some Greek food that was grilled or otherwise different from American comfort food.

The diners here were run out. We had Greek diners as well. Suburban sprawl.

Diner food after a night out is the best! Coffee and a slice of pie, please.

Yep--a legit NJ diner is the best. French toast, pancakes, pork roll, egg and cheese on a roll, bottomless coffee, greek salad with the best dressing, grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, BLT, matzah ball soup. Totally eclectic and so yum. Damn I want to go. Sorry you went to shitty diners. Like anything, there's good ones and bad ones.

And I love the Tastee Diner (gruff but great waitresses included!) but it's a different kind of diner from NJ diners. Highly recommend the country fried steak!

I miss a good NY or NJ diner! As someone above said, you need to order correctly - breakfast items, blts, and burgers. You don’t get fish or steak or anything else.

I love a good diner. What I can’t stand are all the mediocre restaurants in this whole metro area that are not special and 3x the price of a diner. Bad Italian food, bad Chinese, I could go on.

If you go to the right diner, it's a combination of easy comfort food, something for everyone on the menu and the atmosphere. I love a good diner but i also don't need to have fine dining every time I go out to eat.