EC Diner — Restaurant in Ellicott City

I would give this a half a star in each category I could. Now I know reviews can make or break a restaurant, so I give them his low rating as a warning to other people so they do not waste their money or walk into a bad experience like I did this afternoon. I'm sorry if this comes off as angry or whiny, but as someone who has been a waiter and worked in a kitchen, I don't understand how any of this happened.

I know most diner-style places are going to be busy over the weekend with that post-church crowd and families doing their weekend out together, etc., but most places usually expect that or plan for it. I'm also generally a patient person as I've worked in restaurants and sometimes you cannot help there being a delay or increased time on orders if the kitchen gets backed up or things get really busy. It happens, it's fine and most of the time it sorts out and everything works out for staff and patrons.

Waiting almost 1 and a half hours for food to get to our table, having an entire menu for iced coffee and different menu items but then telling us the coffee machine is broken so they only thing they can serve is iced lattes, seeing the table next to us who didn't sit down until we'd been there almost an hour hadn't even got their drink order in yet by the time our table left an hour later, having three different servers take our order despite us telling each new one that someone had come and taken our drink and food orders already, two of the servers didn't seem to understand us or really anything we were trying to say despite pointing to menus and repeating ourselves numerous times for each item, our final waitress either couldn't hear us or in many cases saw us and other tables trying to get her attention and she quite literally turned the other way away from us; It seems like the staff didn't want to serve the table next to us which was a family of black people so not really a great impression there.

And on top of all that, I also tried ordering food to go for my partner at home. I ordered a BLTA with no mayo for them as they are allergic to ingredients in mayo, so I was doubly sure to make it clear to the server that no mayo be on the sandwich. She brought it to the table packed up and bagged so I didn't think to check the sandwich.. my mistake. Get home, partner looks at it, it's slathered with mayo.

I get restaurants aren't going to get it 100% of the time, but so many things going wrong all at once in a single visit sends a lot of red flags my way. Admittedly, I hadn't been here since just after 2023, so not sure if there's new management or what. I tried calling their phone number to speak with management, spoke with someone who told me "you should have checked your sandwich before leaving", and then I was left on hold for over 15 minutes before the call hanging up.

This isn't the same EC Diner, and like many historic establishments in the area it is sad to see another slide and phone it in. I will not be going back and I guess I should be grateful we didn't leave getting sick from...

Ive been here several times and each time, its gotten progressively worse. The service i havent had a problem with, but as i try different things on the menu, i become less and less happy with them. Overall, the food quality is pretty low. It just tastes like they use low quality ingredients. Soups taste pretty generic, vegetables like corn taste like theyre out of a can. This makes no sense since they claim their ingredients are all locally sourced etc on their menu. The best thing on their menu so far is the seasoned waffle fries. Ive gotten, the pesto chicken panini (bland), burgers (not bad, have struggled with cooking consistency), a reuben (flavorless corned beef, pretty bad), french toast (nothing special, not enough batter or spice at all), the brick chicken (BADLY overdone, and the manager wrote “did not like food” rather than acknowledge the badly overcooked food and seemed completely nonchalant about it even when spoken to about it), and today i got open faced roast beef, which was by far the worst thing ive gotten here so far. It was drowning in gravy for one thing, so much so i couldnt tell it was an open faced sandwich at all. The gravy was also flavorless. The meat was chewy, overdone, and fatty along with being flavorless. It was to put it bluntly, awful. Our waiter was great about all of it, but management again wrote “did not like food” on the receipt. It seems like their management doesnt care that theyre serving crappy food. After i sent that back, i ordered a plain burger, and got a cheeseburger, which again was incorrect. My waiter put it in correctly, but the kitchen messed it up. He took that back and very quickly brought me another one. Which wound up being almost rare inside when i ordered it medium well. I sent that back as well and did not order anything else. The rest of my party was done eating by that point. After sending back 3 orders, the manager never came to talk to me, not once. They just comped the bill and figured that was good enough. Pretty disgusted. If you come here, id stick with ordering breakfast. That seems to be their strong suit. The place overall is pretty cute. They just need to seriously get their act together with their food quality, management, and the kitchen.

4 month edit: nobody has even tried to reach out to me from their management about my poor review, which tracks with their general overall attitude towards customer service. Havent been back since i wrote this review, and have no plans to go back anytime within the near future unless i...

I am sharing my unfortunate first-time and last experience with this restaurant. I am not commenting on the food since I did not get to enjoy it. I am commenting on the unprofessional and undesirable service I received from the hostess tonight. I was so embarrassed and disappointed on her behavior that I did not see myself eating there. I took my Daughter and Father, who was in town visiting, out for dinner and was excited to try this diner. My daughter went in first as I stayed a little behind walking with my Dad who has some mobility issues and is also a big tall man. Unknowingly, my daughter asked to be seated at a booth which would not work for my Dad. The hostess took us right to the booth in the far back corner surrounded by already full tables. As she waited for us at the booth, I signaled her to come over where we were at about the middle of the room so I could ask for a different accommodation for my Dad. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts I approached her and politely asked if we could please seat at a table instead. She was visibly upset about my request. She just set our menus on the table closest to us and left us there. So, we proceeded to sit down and waited for a server feeling a bit awkward. I then see a server looking at us and mumbling something to another person about us seating there. Then the hostess came and talked to that server about us, in Spanish, in a rude and unprofessional tone. This was right in front of us. They did not realize that Spanish is our first language. The server then signaled in English she would be right over. When she came over to our table I politely explained to her, in Spanish, my disappointment and embarrassment for having being treated that way. I told her I had been respectful and had just requested to be seated at a table for my Dad who has a condition. The server apologized profusely and was nice to us but the damage was done. I was so upset! We just stood up and left. It does not matter if you have great food if you are not taking the time to train your employees to provide good customer service and even treat people with basic respect. We ended up dining happily at Glory Days where we were treated wonderfully and the food was good too. I love supporting our local places and I am not one to complain much. But this bothered me so much I had to share. I hope EC Diner management wakes up and addresses this issue if they do not want to this to become their norm in their business. Hope that is...