Zak's Diner Carleton Place — Restaurant in Carleton Place

We tried Zaks in Carleton Place for dinner yesterday and it was not worth the money at all. For starters when we went in they took our temperature and asked for a name for contact tracing for Covid (which I was totally okay with) but then went to a table to be seated and it had food on the chairs and bench seat areas and dried ketchup and crumbs on the table, which was a clear indication that they not only didn't disinfect the table and chairs between customers, it wasn't even cleaned off properly at all....hmmm, so much for the temperature taking at the front entrance? We all ordered a burger/fries meal and specifically asked to please serve our food hot. It came out and the fries were barely warm and the burger meat is a cheap pressed patty that was not very appetizing at all. My husband order fries with his burger and got onion rings instead? So they did send out fries and guess what, they were hot but the fries on the other two burger plates were turning cold at the start of eating. The burgers were gross and two of us only ate half. The meat was weird and tasted processed. The cost they charge for a burger/fries dish and the fries are barely hot and the burger is processed is not my idea of a great meal. We should have went to A&W and got a better burger for half the cost. They do not offer to top up coffee and the coleslaw was in little mini take away containers. A sit down meal should not be served anything in take out containers. Anyways, we thought we would give it a try because it is new to town and wanted to go and support, but going forward we will not be returning. Paying $75 for 3 lousy burger dinner with a tip is way over rated for food that is certainly not worthy of the cost. The burgers should be a fresh ground beef patty, not processed burgers....yuck!! You only get one chance to make a first impression and it was a pretty negative...

edit Both myself and my partner complained about our meals and experience. I personally thought the owner was going to rectify the situation and make us want to come back, but I don't feel like that was done. They only want you to email so they can try to convince you to change your review. My partner and I spent well over 60$ for our meal and tip, and we were. Given a 25$ gift card as a response to cold, burnt food and horrid service. As I'm looking here you clearly haven't fixed the problems in your restaurant as only this week you had a complaint of cold food being delivered again. I really do not recommend

(Approximately 3-4 weeks ago) Unfortunately last night I was here and had a godawful experience. I love diners myself and I've never been into a Zak's before, honestly probably won't be going back to any Zak's again in the future.

The night started with waiting at our table for 20 Minutes without having any orders taken or drinks brought over. Finally got to order some food and then waisted 40 minutes to actually get the food. When the food came out it was a surprising mix of burnt and cold, not really sure how that's possible. My back Bacon was so overcooked my partner was tapping it off his plate and making music. My pancakes was inedible due to being burnt on the bottom, and somehow, my scrambled eggs were stone cold.

Very terrible service and food. Waiter just stood around talking to his co-workers the whole time, saw four different meals sitting on the kitchen counter for at least 15 minutes before they were brought out to people (probably explains why mine was so cold).

The best part about this situation, is it was a half empty restaurant and it was not busy.

Definitely would not recommend, especially Carleton...

Edit to respond to owner: where does it say on menu or online after 4pm? And you didn't address any of the other issues. Where are your high chairs with trays?

False advertising :( They say kids under 10 are free if with adult. Well they DON'T say only starts at 4y old. So we chose this place because they were kid-friendly and then find out can't even get the advertised free meal. Nowhere on the site or menu says minimum age. Another fun part was that they don't actually have high chairs for kids to eat in. As in with a tray! They have a chair for kids to be strapped into, that's far too short for them to reach the actual table, and they don't have any chairs with kid trays. So my kid had to eat on my lap, meaning I can't eat too. I've been to local dive bars and even THEY have high chair that a kid can actually eat in. For a seemingly family-friendly location, it's not somewhere I will be bringing my family again since it's incredibly inconvenient.

Food was pretty good, service was horrible but friendly. Never got refill drinks in almost 2h there, and had to get my own napkins and utensils after asking and they never came. Not super packed with other tables, but server was overwhelmed with one...