Bobby Sox 50's Diner — Restaurant in Maple Ridge

This used to be a 5 star review. I had to edit it after years of having exceptional heartfelt experiences with family here because the historically friendly, patient, and accommodating staff and food quality has been "stengthened" by "diversity and inclusion".

Not only does my food, on average, take longer to arrive at the table, but the 'friendly' quotient has plummeted. Now, you're given abrupt and the type of 'technical' service one might expect from a robot, despite no significant increase in patronage observed. Let alone the difficulty that too much of the new service staff has in understanding English.

What went from a friendly Maple Ridge establishment to bring family to, has become what seems like a purely transactional experience. I've easily been here 100 times since it opened in the 90s. There were always more convenient places to go in town with comparable prices and food quality. What always set this place apart was the personable experience with the serving staff; yhe willingness to take that extra minute to ask about your day and, when ownership still seemed committed to retain quality front of house service for the patrons, actually be able to converse a bit woth you and to remember and acknowledge your face.

Sadly, over the last couple of years, the front of house HR decisions at Bobby Sox seems to reflect the Trudeau/Singh degradation of Canada. If this is not corrected, I fear for their future, as I am not the only patron who thinks a 50s diner should have higher standards than Tim Hortons.

50's diner patrons don't attend for the fine dining experience, they come for the nostalgic environment in an increasingly dysfunctional world; not for table-delivered 7/11 Reuben sandwiches.

The following was my previous 5-star post, from 7 years ago that I had to downgrade to account for the degradation of the service here over the last 2 years.......

I often take my 95 year old Grandpa here. They staff always have the biggest smiles for him and go out of their way to make sure he gets amazing service and everything is to his liking. That means a lot to me amd I commend them for it. Once in a while come in on my own or with friends and it is always friendly. The food is quality for a 50's diner. Ambience is very retro and cozy. Portions are big and by far they have the best...

As a person who regularly visited Bobby Sox and have never had an issue I am extremely disappointed in their handling of the COVID19 social distancing guidelines in their restaurant. I was very uncomfortable about them seating a couple directly across from the booth I was in (though there is some type of board between their booths there is nothing between the booths and this table, it is just a table for two across the walkway from two booths). It is less then 6' (you could reach out and touch them) and this table should not be being used right now. In addition to this patrons being seated at the booth beside us were aloud to touch one of the people at my table and look over at her food and the waitress seating them said nothing. They aloud another patron to break social distancing rules right in front of them and did nothing. They are also not enforcing the rule that patrons must put masks on if they leave their table. The restaurant is not big and was full with every table seated and people seated at the bar. I am not sure what their max limit is with COVID19 but it felt like there were too many people. So I left and rather than report them for breaking COVID19 restaurant guidelines, I called the restaurant to just let them know that people are trying to venture out and find some normalcy again but if restaurants are not following the rules it can make some of their customers feel very uncomfortable and for good reason. For my trouble I was told the owner was out of the country, the manager was not in and they were too busy to deal with my concerns, I was then hung up on. Very disappointing treatment especially during a time when we should all try a little harder to keep the safety of others a priority. In my opinion if they are breaking rules right in front of people I can't imagine what they are doing...

Unfortunately, this is the third restaurant we've had an issue with this week in Maple Ridge. We aren't picky so, this is embarrassing for our town at this point. We had people coming from over half an hour away to meet for a first time meal... Sadly, the server was clearly over worked as although she was kind, it took more than 20 min to manage to when consider flagging her down to get drinks for the other half of our party... we decided to pay for our 2 beers and order my friend's son a chocolate milkshake for take out as he was really looking forward to it. The table next to ours had fried SO burnt we could smell them and we'd over heard the staff sat they were unwilling to replace them. They'd not been touched bar one or 2 to taste. We spoke with them and they said they'd been loyal, regular customers for 25 years but, were profoundly unhappy and would be speaking to the day staff/manager as they believed it may be a new evening cook... we paid quickly and left ... ai say quickly as it was over 40 minutes to leave and head elsewhere. Super disappointed as we truly wanted to support a unique local business but, there is very little dairy free or vegetarian options which was problematic but, unstandable based on the niche. I will say... as I don't eat meat, I was looking forward to one of their raved about home made pies... which were sold out... 😞🤦‍♀️ Suprr embarassed to bring friends and their kiddo out our way to end up unable to eat and waste a lot if time while pushing our infant's bed time to the point of nuclear...