Angel's Diner — Restaurant in Guelph

DISGUSTING FOOD. (Are these 5 star reviews fake?)

Staff were excellent, restaurant is clean with an inviting retro 50's decor. My only issue, sadly, was the food. I really wanted to like this place, since my parents LOVE the Cambridge location, and I was expecting good things.

Soup of the Day (Tomato & Split Pea) - flavour was ok, but had a gluey, goopy texture. Bowl was hotter than the soup itself, so it was certainly just microwaved.

"Best Ribs in Town" - I had the 1 lb rack with fries and veggies. The rib sauce was ok, but the meat texture was overcooked or disintegrated. I wondered if it was reheated from frozen, since I once ate a chicken curry that had been in my freezer for weeks and that meat had a similar texture to these pork ribs. Falling off the bone, yes, but not in a good way. Food temperature was warm, but not hot. Swiss Chalet ribs are better. The fries were overly salty. The veggies (baby carrots and beans) were pushing my definition of edible... definitely from a can, dumped in a bowl, and microwaved. How hard is it to prepare fresh vegetables? A bag of frozen veggies from the grocery store would taste better.

I sampled the plates of others at my table, hoping for better.

Chicken Parmesan - It was touted as a "recommended" special on the display board. Unfortunately, it was very dry breast meat with a weak tomato sauce on top. The pasta on the side was a very lazy attempt at food. Noodles way overcooked, like they'd been sitting in hot water for an hour waiting to be plated. Meat sauce had a tin-can "Chef Boyardee" flavour, which was not the nostalgia I was hoping for here.

How can this place be so busy with food like this? I can only assume most of their customers have a diminished sense of taste and smell. Or did we just get unlucky and order all the wrong...

Friendly service, good food and a fun, rare atmosphere.

Had breakfast here and was pleasantly surprised by my overall experience. I don't often find myself in diners, but this one had a great time capsule feel and fantastic breakfast food to back it up. As soon as you walk in you can see a display case of cakes, a gum ball machine and an impressive statue of Elvis up on the counter. The tables are simple and look just like how you'd expect them to look decades ago. As a man in his 20's, I could really feel what I'd call an authentic vintage vibe in this place and it was sort of a nice way to step out of the modern day for an hour. It's certainly been a while since I was anywhere quite like it.

There seems to be an eclectic staff at Angel's and I was there on a Sunday morning so I'd bet that I saw most of them because it was quite busy. I had a very nice woman as my waitress and the service was quick and pleasant. There are a few younger staff members that seem a bit less comfortable with directly interacting with customers, but I have no overt complaints regarding staff in general.

The only thing I would change here is the fact that there is a single payment point at a counter on your way out... acknowledging that they didn't have debit machines in the 50's/60's, it would be nice to have payment conducted at the table because at busy times like the Sunday morning that I was there it's easy for the walkways to get congested with people lining up to pay.

Other than that, I had a great time at Angel's Diner and I'll...

Came here to order a smoked meat poutine for takeout as I was craving one. The total came out to $19.20 exactly after tax. However, what I got instead would never pass as poutine in Canada. I say this especially as someone who has grown up living in Quebec for a number of years. Even by Ontario standards I would consider it abysmal. The pictures I took should show the reasons why. They were taken shortly after I got back from ordering it. I gave two stars instead of 1 because the staff helping me were polite.

The fries were undoubtedly overcooked and old, as they were dry and starchy inside and had no seasoning. The gravy also lacked flavour and did nothing to compliment the fries, other than make them less dry. The real kicker was the near absolute lack of cheese in this whole poutine. Not even talking about proper cheese curds, but just any kind of cheese. I could count on my single hand how many spots of white cheese I could find in the whole container. The only fair part of the dish was the smoked meat, and it was mediocre. The portion size was also disappointing as it was quite small, although I wouldn’t have wanted more of this anyways (see picture with the tall boy can as a comparison).

I’m not sure if management is cutting corners to save costs but this felt like I got duped. Especially for a premium price of almost $20 for poutine, it has to be good. Do yourself a favour and don’t make the same...