The Gem Diner — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

My brother(who is up visiting from Ohio) asked if I would join him and our sweet grandmother at a place she has gone since she was a very young women (since before she had met our since past grandfather). I have been her several times as a child into my adulthood and never once experienced what I did today. As we walked in the e were not greeted by the hostess, unless huffing and rolling your eyes is the new welcome. As I was standing at the table we were seated at waiting for the hostess to return with a high chair for my 1 year old, I hear a very rude “uh excuses me!” Come from none other than the hostess, obviously my back was to her so I did not know she had come up behind me until then. Our waitress approached our table and the first thing she says is “what are you all drinking”, no hello my name is...nothing. She returns with our drinks and says “are you ready to order yet?”, my grandmother says “not yet, we need a few more minutes if that is ok?”, the waitress who I later found out to be named Danielle, huffs, crosses her arms and says “I will give you one more minute”, walks away, returns with “now are you ready?!?” We order...fast forward...my grandmother asks for jelly, Danielle comes back and tosses two packets of jelly on the table, I stop her and ask if I could order a small plate of scrambled eggs for the baby as he’s not feeling any of the food I ordered, Danielle says “uh yeah ok”. Danielle doesn’t appear to be the only miserable, bothered to be there, waitress on either....time to leave my brother goes to ask for change so he can leave our lackluster waitress a tip she did not earn based off of her personality but because we are not ignorant ppl we know most waitresses depend on tips to break even, Danielle barks at my brother “go to the end to pay!” Alrighty lady just trying to break a 20$ to give you tip... as we are leaving (thank god!) i we hear the oh so lovely Danielle say to another waitress “ugh give me a broom and a wet rag to clean that baby’s mess, it’s ridiculous!” mind you my ONE YEAR OLD son dropped a piece of toast and a few pieces of eggs which we picked up the pieces that were large enough to grab by hand and apologized for his tiny mess...so yeah very disappointed and sad (for my grandmother who has been going there for decades) to say that we will not be returning to due to their staffs’ lack of interpersonal skills and just plan lack of common curtesy/any sign of integrity for...

Went there for lunch with my love. We're both food lovers and she had gotten a sandwich with tough to chew ingredient. Server who wasn't ours made an excuse about how they use a certain kind of ingredient when I myself as an educated culinary artist with over 20+ years of experience in food service and management said to a server it was probably from the breakfast ingredient that was used. Owner supposedly remade her sandwich, but she took it to go and ended up giving it away.

My sandwich wasn't perfect either. Cross contamination of foods are common in food service, but if they were servicing the health department. They would have been told to have both item tossed away and possibly more, correct what's incorrect and have incident posted in local restaurant inspection which would decrease their business. It doesn't upset me so much because I've dealt with worst service elsewhere and have had my fairshare of mishaps as a chef in the past. But at least the blonde admitted that food was stored next to each other.

We kinda felt unwanted there after the incident happened and before the remake was served as several different employees came around our table to scope us out as if we did something wrong. We decided to leave before finishing our drinks. Paid, tipped and bailed before the vibe had gotten worse. In all honesty, I've eaten there years ago and had no issues. The server should have been honest about what ingredient was actually used rather than making an excuse of a specific one.

Advice to the establishment if they read this and any incident occurs again. The customer is always right and not to be given any excuses. Just redo/remake order without creating a stink or at least offer discount or free dessert to appease the errors. Don't make the customers feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed when the faults were all yours. Don't send other people to respond besides the original server or at least the cook who made our order. Other people draws too much attention and made us and other customers around us feel uneasy.

We'll probably end up eating there again and. Hopefully we won't feel unwelcomed and they've corrected their mistakes without outside interference from NYS health inspectors. People need to eat and mistakes do happen especially in food service. So a fair review is better than a reported health...

Have wanted to enjoy an authentic Syracuse diner experience. Gem has a long history as just this. We arrived around 1:30pm on 1/27/2016. Lunch was in full swing. Patrons ranged from white to blue collar as well as a broad spectrum from mom and pop to students. In my opinion, It's always a good sign to see this kind of mix- and I prefer it. The greeting Staff was very friendly and down to earth. We had a slight 10-15 wait for our table. That was expected due to arriving at the peak lunch time service. We were led to a small windowless prison like dining room in the very back. It has blank walls and a kitchen door. Zero atmosphere. FOOD: My acid test for any stainless steel classic diner is the equally classic burger and fries.. What I ordered: a medium well done Swiss Burger. Lettuce, tomatoes, and red onion slices were requested on the side. Gravy for my fries was also ordered on the side. I also asked for my bun to be toasted- it was not. What I received: Nothing was on the side as ordered. A scrap of lettuce, two tiny rings of red onion and two small tomato ends were on the open face bun. They forgot the Swiss Cheese. My French-fries were mushy and undercooked. On top of them was an ocean of gravy making the fries even soggier. They were of low quality and basically inedible. The meal was quite poor. I ate a third of it and walked out hungry. The high point was the fresh ice tea....a refill came just before the check. I give this experience a 1 out of 10 burgers.. We will not go back. A shame. Was looking forward to finding a new place to visit regularly. The staff was great, the holding-cell back dining room is a...