Urban Diner — Restaurant in Edmonton

Where do I begin? I have been coming to this location for over 15 years and today they lost my business forever. I spent $46.00 on two sandwiches and these meals weren’t even worth the price of a McChicken from MacDonalds. The service was pitiful at best and the tip was not earned nor deserved. The server deserve a tip of $0.00. My guest and I ordered the clubhouse sandwich with the tomato soup. I’ll start with the soup…. This was the equivalent of opening a can of cheap tomato sauce from Dollar Tree. It tasted sour, it was lumpy, it had no flavour and the restaurant has become so cheap that the bowls of soup were barely half full. The sandwiches…. The chicken was tough, there was so much goop on the sandwiches that the bread was soggy and falling apart when you pick it up and the pickles on the side were soft and mushy and tasted rotten. The Diet Pepsi…. It was a cup full of carbonation and you can tell that yet again the restaurant cheaped out and put zero actual pop flavour in it. This is what Urban Diner has the audacity to charge $22.00 per meal for? The service here is non-existent. I tipped $5.00 out of pity but the server sure didn’t deserve or earn it. She came over once because I waved her over about the Diet Pepsi and after our meals arrived, she couldn’t be bothered to come over to ask how the meals were. Clearly the staff feel entitled to be tipped for doing absolutely nothing but delivering a plate of food. The food and service have been getting worse and worse over the past year but I gave Urban Diner another chance, never again. The new staff, management and cooks have brought shame to the Urban Diner name from back in the days of “You Gotta Eat Here”. After today, Urban Diner does not deserve my business or frankly, anyone’s business at this point. People are being charged high prices for lack of service and barely edible food. People please do yourselves a favour and take your business elsewhere. You’ll pay high prices for food you can barely eat and service that doesn’t exist. I would give this restaurant negative 100 stars if it were possible. Shame on you Urban Diner! You should be embarrassed this is how you’re now operating your restaurant. Save your money. You’ll find better tasting food and service at a fast food chain.

• Be aware that if you leave an honest but negative review, Urban Diner will ask you to contact them and when you do, they will attempt to bully and intimidate you into removing your review like they...

My daughter had booked us, a party of 8, at least a month before Mother’s Day. We arrived at opening to find that there was no reservation for us. We explained that she had spoken to someone who explained that there had to be a party of 8 to make a reservation and since we qualified we were assured we were booked for 9 am. Initially there was a lot of confusion about what to do with us and we waited as they continually seated parties of four (?) all over the place. I could overhear them discussing that we likely didn’t have a reservation if it wasn’t “ confirmed”. What did that mean? Eventually they agreed to push two tables together for us, tables that were not the same size so the middle person on each side had to eat with two tables about 4” offset. Not comfortable for sure. We had an infant with us and we were there was no high chair available and that he would have to sit on a booster seat even though he is only 11 months old. We could see a high hair available at another table but were told we could not use it. My daughter suggested we take a booth and add a table onto it and then he might be able to sit on a booster but we were told the booth was not available to us. Eventually they gave in and gave us the high chair; which in the end no one seemed to miss at all. For safety reasons it was ridiculous to suggest a child of this age sit on a chair on a booster seat.

When the meal came the food was only average. I had the eggs Benedict and aside from the eggs I was given a sliver of watermelon about 1inch wide and the potatoes were spread out across the plate in one layer to make the plate appear full. The juice everyone ordered was watered down. This was any fortunate way to start Mothers Day for sure. Not once did anyone come up to us and apologize for losing our reservation at all. Very poor customer service for sure. We went to this same place the year previous and while they had our reservation we were told when being seated that we had only 1 1/2 hours before we had to leave. We tried to give them a fair shot again this year but we now have to vote with our feet....

This is a lovely little diner with fast friendly staff, a decently varied menu and a pretty neat location. Their prices are good, especially for a citywide infamous diner, and the portions are AMAZING! My only qualm is, unfortunately, with their famous meatloaf; if you're not necessarily a meatloaf lover (like myself), then you might not enjoy some of their menu options. Their meatloaf is very well seasoned and has a very prominent taste that stands out from everything else that they serve (in a good way, in my opinion). It works well with some dishes, if it's the main ingredient (like with their 'Mom's Meatloaf' sandwich), but paired along with other ingredients in dishes like their 'Breakfast Burger', it can be very overwhelming.

The 'Breakfast Burger' sandwich consists of: Ham, crispy bacon, meatloaf, fried egg, cheddar and roasted red pepper aioli.

However, despite all of the lovely ingredients listed above, the only thing I found myself tasting was the meatloaf. It definitely wasn't a bad taste but, again, if you're not a big meatloaf lover, menu options with or starring their meatloaf probably won't be a great experience for you. That's honestly the only thing that kept me from rating this place five stars, because other than that, this really is an awesome joint to stop by for breakfast/brunch/lunch.

I hope my review can help someone who's dropping by there for...