My wife and I have eaten here several times, and have always had great service from the staff, a clean table, and a lively atmosphere with so many locals packing the booths and counter. Dalton Restaurant is sort of a fixture of Dalton and has been family run...well, forever. And I suspect that longstanding patronage and vaunted local status has contributed to the reason we've given this restaurant only two stars: they just aren't trying very hard to please customers anymore.

The problem isn't the selection -- there are lots of options. And it's not pricing, which is always reasonable. I've already said the service is good, and it's clean inside, and there are lots of other folks having meals there at all times of the day.

Okay, so what's the problem...?

The problem is the quality of the food itself. The coffee, for example, is undrinkable. Having travelled all around the country and had the best and the worst of bar and diner fare, I can confirm that there is really no worse coffee anywhere in the U.S. than what is served at Dalton Restaurant. It doesn't even taste like coffee. And if you add some the restaurant's left-out-too-long half-and-half to that strangely flavored brew...well you'll get a very interesting beverage indeed, with a lingering and unsettling aftertaste. :-0

Another example is the breakfast steak. It doesn't taste like steak, but has more of a chemically liver flavor. Maybe the tenderizer they use is to blame, but this breakfast cut is just about as inedible as the coffee is undrinkable. And again a strange aftertaste will stick with you long after you finish your meal.

Are there any exceptions? Sure. The chef's tuna salad is actually pretty good, and the burger is too. Breakfast eggs are also a fairly safe bet. The home fries that come with breakfasts are hit-and-miss, but on a good day they're savory if a little mushy. And on the occasions I've ordered a beverage from the bar, it's been a generous pour (which is always nice). But so far these are the only things on the menu that we would ever order again from Dalton Restaurant -- resulting in what has become very limited selection of safe or enjoyable options.

The one bright spot is the bakery next door, which is attached to the restaurant, and from which you can order reliably yummy baked goods with your Dalton Restaurant meal. Or...you could save yourself an unfortunate and disappointing dining experience and just order some baked goods from the bakery to go.

Lastly, the other irksome challenge we encountered at Dalton Restaurant is that mentioning any of the food and beverage problems to the staff doesn't result in a better outcome. You won't get a redo, and you won't get the items you didn't eat or drink taken off the bill. "That's what we serve," said one of the wait staff to me when I raised an issue about my meal (sigh). It's what they've always served at Dalton Restaurant, and folks just keep filling up the restaurant to order more of it...so why should anything change?

C'est la vis.