Metro Diner — Restaurant in Aiken County

OMG! Is a funny thing, I was in Aiken again and this time my wife able to join me. So of course, we start looking for a place to have dinner, having eaten at The Feed Sack the night before (please check that review), we use Google maps to look for places to eat. It seemed no matter what type of food we were looking for, one name kept popping up, the Metro Diner. Well since I have such a smorgasbord of dining cuisines, it seemed only natural that we needed to stop and the place was rated very highly. A very clean and bright facility as you walk in from the front you immediately see the cooking grill area with the mandatory counter and stools for customers. This only accentuates the '50s vibe you get from all the rest of the decor. And the menu definitely provides you a nice list of various things and styles of food to choose from. There were some awfully good looking specials and the huge chalkboard as well. The thing that caught our eyes was the fried chicken. So we ordered this dish, chatted about the day, the places my wife had gone to look at around town like the railroad museum and a park in downtown Aiken, when our server presented us with this huge plate of chicken. My wife had gotten the chicken and waffles with a strawberry butter. This also came with what was billed as a sweet hot sauce. The sweet hot sauce was a wonderful maple syrup with Pete's Red Hot in it. I just got the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. The beans were fantastic. Something a little bit more than blanched, hot all the way through and crunchy. The mashed potatoes were that kind it still had the little potato bits in it letting you know they were made with real potatoes and not a mix. Now let's come to the chicken. I routinely will eat a little bit of the breading but my wife and I generally pull back all the skin and printing just eat the chicken. Getting fried chicken definitely puts a different texture on the chicken and not eating the skin with all the breading is supposed to be "healthier". You still often get most of the seasonings through in the chicken even pulling the skin off. But and I mean but the Metro Diner has a secret that the way they make their fried chicken my wife and I ate just about all of the exterior skin and coating. My goodness gracious or as I started this omg, this was the best fried chicken we've ever had. I will admit, it was piping hot and initially only a little bits were taken off as we let the chicken cool down a bit. We've definitely were enthralled with the sweet and hot sauce. The fact that the ingredients were sitting at the table allows you to make more as you need it. And we've noted, it was a secret recipe we brought home and have used a couple times already. Our service was great. The food was great. And they're right, the variety of cuisines the Metro Diner has. I can only imagine how good...

Update: 8/5/25 - I haven't been back since I wrote the original review but did finally see their response. Again, underwhelmed. There is nothing about, "I'll share this with the staff." from the Owner that makes me whole. There are other restaurants in Aiken that suit my needs like "Flippin Egg", La Parisienne, Willcox, Track Kitchen, Joyful Cafe and a bunch of Waffle Houses. I'm still in awe that between the chef and the waitress it was acceptable to serve charred toast to a guest.

It was mid morning, so not busy. I met a friend and the wait was short. My breakfast was INEDIBLE. I ordered an omelette without mushrooms and peppers, fruit instead of hash browns and multi grain toast. Simple, but not. ALL of the toast was burnt to the point of charred. The first slice was bad but the last slice was inedible and you could see all of it. Except for 5 grapes the rest of the fruit was rind. The omelette had maybe 1/2 TEASPOON of ham and the same with cheese. The rest was ALL onions. Technically, it was an Onion Omelette (not what I ordered). The coffee was burnt. I told the waitress when she brought the food to the table that the toast was burnt (obvious) and she asked what I wanted to do. I said, "I don't even want to look at it". She replaced the toast, but c'mon. Since I was with a friend and didn't have the time to send it all back, I later called and left a message. Crickets! I did tip the waitress (she's not the cook) but not as much as I would have. $22 is OUTRAGEOUS for such a poor quality breakfast at...

I’ve tried so hard to like this place but it’s a struggle. So inconsistent. The server was friendly but our drinks ran dry & finally we had to flag another server down to get ours to come to the table. I ordered beef tips. I was surprised and not at all thrilled to get my tips, potatoes and beans in a bowl. First off I’m not a fan of my food being squished together nor do I care for gravy on my beans. The food was good but our party of 4 was a bit taken back by the serving sizes. By no means did any of feel like we had dinner portions except the one who ordered a standard chicken sandwich. Heck he had more fries alone than I had food period. Our meals didn’t come with any type of bread/rolls etc and when we inquired we were offered toast or biscuits for an additional charge. This has never happened before. We got the biscuits and I commented that they looked DONE. Someone at the table took a fork to split his and add butter - only the fork couldn’t split the biscuit. I’m not exaggerating- it was that hard. We sent them back and ate without any. I might add we were not offered anything else either. It’s also a lost opportunity for a restaurant that doesn’t try to up sale dessert…. I mean after we were still...