Island Girls Diner — Restaurant in Saint John

Be warned this might be long and not every point I raise will be relevant to everyone. Also, know that I went here wanting to like it after seeing good reviews and photos of the food. I'll start with the accessibility since this is where the evening goes wrong. Being in a wheelchair, I need a certain amount of room and mostly level or at least not abrupt transitions. There is a small lip that really wouldn't give me much trouble except for their choice to take up room in a narrow entrance way with decor pieces that do nothing to add to the experience. So, lip means I need a good amount of headstart and all the room possible to stop. Between the size of the entrance and the decor getting in wasn't happening. Ok, my wife was with me let's get takeout. Issue two, not a single staff was watching the door. We were lined up outside the door, those waiting for seats and take out in the same line. It was mentioned to them someone should be checking what people are there for, if picking up food that might be ready, sitting there and getting cold why is no one periodically asking patrons what they are their for and serving the takeout to let those people eat. The response by the way oh it's just busy. Yeah no kidding. That's why we are telling you to pay attention and maybe check. On top of that you have something like 10 tables between 2 rooms and at least 3 staff out front if they can't keep up and check outside please hire more staff. Onto the food and experience. In the "dining room" is a microwave and a soup cauldron/warmer. It might be normal to use a microwave at a restaurant, I personally never want to see a waitress warming up my food in a microwave before bringing it to me. None of this should be in the dining room. Patrons should never see that you are cutting corners and charging them for the privilege. Anyway, we wanted to try and so we ordered the two piece fish and chips to go for each of us. At $15 bucks I apparently had too high of expectations. At that price I expect whole fillets and good fries. What I got was two pieces of haddock loin. So, about 4 to 5 inches long and 2 inches wide. Ok, now I'm very disappointed. We dig in anyway by now we're starving. The fish is battered in a thick, nasty batter and it dawns on me where I tasted this before, Deluxe. On top of the bad batter, the fish was overcooked and dry so not only was the portion really small for the price it was awful. The fries were under cooked, soggy and had absolutely no seasoning. We ate what we could because we had been waiting so long tossed the rest and won't be back. Honestly if you're West and craving fish drive somewhere else. Your wallet and stomach will thank you. To the owner's of Island girls you have a...

The food here is not what it was when they opened. At our last visit the pancakes were rubbery and tasted like onions. The fish was overcooked to a dark brown, almost black and fries were cold, we had to get up to ask for tartar sauce and ketchup. Eggs were not cooked as asked for either. We said something to the waitress and she took the fish and chips and the pancakes off the bill but we still didn't get to enjoy a meal. We ended up leaving half our food and the fruit flies were merciless the whole time we were eating. They were flying all around our heads and landing in our food continuously. It was the worst experience we've had in a long time. We were big fans of this establishment when it opened so I think they need to make some changes to bring it back up to their original standard. I would not recommend this place for a vegan or vegetarian either, there just aren't many choices other than a veggie wrap or breakfast...

This is just the kind of place I'm looking for when traveling. We had dinner (takeout) which was good and then came back for breakfast inside on Sunday morning. Lots of locals bringing kids and family in. Even though the place is in a strip mall, it's full of sun and really feels like a diner on the inside.

My only criticism is pancake syrup in packets rather than a bottle for breakfast inside and premade tarter sauce in packets for takeout. This is a lot more "McDonald's" than classic diner.

CAUTION: There are photos of what turned out to be very old, outdated menus on Google Maps. It looks like sometime in the last few years, they stripped their menu down. There are no clams or lobster rolls or seafood platters other than fish & chips. The entire menu is a single page now...