Brogan's Diner — Restaurant in City of Langley

I am basing this review on coming here with my family a few nights ago and the opening remark is confusing. My mom was ranting about how great the diner was so we went with a large group of 12 of us and it seems strange from the point of entry into the diner. Outside were a line up of high end downhill mountain bikes with no mountains to be around but a few unsavory characters sitting in the front booths.

Walking our way through the diner it seemed like a lot of regulars who eat there and got some strange looks that seemed like "how dare you come here" walked towards the large table that was reserved for us the staff had to ask some patrons to leave the table as it had been reserved. There were multiple people coming to our table talking to us, thanking us that we came in, one random lady was talking to me about how we were all going to sing during open mike night, another woman gave my brother and nephews chocolate covered bacon, another woman kept coming up to my 7 month niece constantly trying to look at her and a woman with a faux hawk came and took our drink and food orders (she was a total sweetheart)

Now here is when things went strange, on the stage for open mike the lady played some strange religious movies that were some off breed of karaoke. I'm not religious but it seems like they kept trying to spoon feed us their gospel music the entire time we sat there. I didn't take offense but it was annoying.

The ambience church music was playing in the background while they were setting up open mike and now the hipsters and what looked like art students started to flood in so now it was a strange crowd of seniors having dinner and hipsters. The open mike started and we opted for the private room in the back,

Moved to the private room and the room was a back brick room that was painted with cars and they had a few space heaters to keep it warm back there. The food came and it was pretty good but the fries were either cooked right or under cooked. I got the fish and chips and they were very pale not crisp at all. They gave my nephew a small cake for his birthday which was nice and also a lemon pie to share.

The front washrooms were gross and my son said to me I don't want to use the bathroom here it smells and it was like a bus stop bathroom like smell. We paid out bill at the end and there were so many people milling about at the till we didn't know who was an employee, who was paying their bill, or who was just taking up room to chat with the waitress there.

When we were leaving there just seemed to be unsavory people just hanging around the front area where the booths were and the rest of the patrons still gave a strange look of "how dare you came here to eat here, this is our place"

I would not recommend coming here on a Saturday night when the live music is on because it's either strange religious movies being played or the usual open mike crowd people who jump from place to place to sing. If you have children do not bring them here because the street people who come in and hang both inside and outside made my wife and I a little on edge.

The waitress with the faux hawk was a gem and she worked her butt off for everyone as she was the only server by the end...

I attended a private event at Brogan's a few weeks ago.

Great 50's diner decor and a talented singer for the first part of the evening, but almost everything else was definitely sub par.

Cost was $35/person which was to include a space for the group, bartender, live music, dessert bar, and a choice of 1 of 4 menu items. Sounds good right?

Our party of 4 arrived about 30 minutes after everyone else due to work commitments. We were told, very rudely, that we had to sit separately amongst the other guests as the diner had set aside exactly the number of spots booked, no room for accommodating people who wanted to sit together. Eventually we were 'allowed' to sit at a table together but the evening was already off to a bad start.

There was no dedicated bartender which meant drink service was pitiful as one was dependent on wait staff who were rude, slow, unorganized, uncaring, and seemingly ill prepared for a large group. Not having a bartender was a bad business move on the part of the diner as they could have made a killing on drinks.

The live music stopped at 9 pm, supposedly there was another singer booked from 9 to 11 but they did not show.

The food was average at best, leaning more towards poor for most of the menu choices. Food arrived at the table cold. French fries were greasy and limp. The vegetables on the roast beef dinner were frozen and tasteless. There was no point in asking for anything to be remade or even heated up as it took forever for the food to arrive in the first place, the chances of getting anything better if one complained seemed negligible, and wait staff were nowhere to be seen.

The dessert bar was indeed available and choice was good but all items were so sickly sweet as to be inedible. Perhaps that is how it was in the 50s?

The service was very slow, unorganized, hard to come by, in addition to the aforementioned rudeness. We had to get our own napkins, utensils, condiments, etc. as wait staff did not deliver, and were nowhere to be seen. The only person that seemed to care was the sweet girl staffing the dessert bar who was very concerned that everyone would get exactly the dessert they wanted. Kudos to her!

The prices for menu items on the regular menu were somewhere between $15 and $20 which meant we paid a premium of $15 to $20 for each person to bring the charge up to $35/person. That would have been acceptable if we had the promised space, bartender, live music, and good service and acceptable food - which we did not!

In addition to this hefty premium on each person (which works out to at least 75%), the diner automatically added a large party service charge onto each bill. Very cheeky and awfully greedy! The credit card machine at checkout also prompted for an additional tip. Some people did not notice the auto added service charge on their bill, and of course the staff at checkout said nothing, so they ended up tipping an additional percentage at check out.

I cannot think of a single reason that I would return to this establishment. If I could give it zero starts I would.

Find another small...

I went here about a week ago with my mom and sibling. We had wanted to go to a coffee shop just around the corner from it, but that shop was closed so we went here instead. Big mistake.

We walked in and waited at the counter. Several staff members walked past us, looked directly at us, and ignored us. Not a single person said anything, not even a "We'll be with you shortly". After about ten minutes of being ignored, I made a point of saying we should just go to McBurney's Coffee, at which point an employee finally acknowledged us. She asked if it was a table for two, even though there were three of us standing visibly, and I said no it's for three.

We all had our vaccine passports ready, because there was a sign on the door, and the employee barely even looked at our phones. She didn't even say anything about my sibling not having their ID out.

We were directed to a table, and our menus were tossed carelessly and rudely on the table before the employee walked away. She didn't say anything about our server being on the way, nothing, just tossed the menus down and walked off.

It took about fifteen minutes before our server even came to ask us about drinks, at which point we'd already decided what we wanted to eat, so we placed our order at that point too. I had the perogy breakfast, Mom had a burger, and my sibling had the veggie wrap. All simple enough to cook, and the diner didn't look very busy at all, yet it was 40 minutes before our food arrived. In that time, our server didn't check on us even once.

The coffee I was served had so many grounds in it that they were visibly floating on top of the liquid, and about 1/3 of my final sip was grounds. Needless to say, I spit that last sip out. The food was decent and the portions were generous, which was the only good point of our experience.

During this time, I was texting with my dad since he was the one who suggested the coffee shop nearby, so I told him it had been closed and where we went instead. I regretted our choice as soon as he started talking about the diner.

As it turns out, Brogan's Diner has been fighting public health orders throughout the entirety of the pandemic, which explains why the employee who sat us didn't seem to care about our passports. Not only that, my dad also informed me that the owner of the diner has multiple convictions of animal abuse, and one of their frequent musical guests directly threatened my 6-year-old cousin for being trans. I've learned my lesson, never...