Squeaky Rail Diner — Restaurant in Enola

STAY AWAY! I'm not one that will take time to write a bad review, but this experience warrants it. Today, Christmas Day, my mother and I found ourselves suddenly needing to find a place to have dinner when a relative fell ill. We met friends today at the Squeaky Rail. The service was at first slow, orders were finally taken and after about a 30 minute wait we were informed that one of the meal choices that three of our party members chose was no longer available. It's Christmas Day, so we understood and other choices were made. As we waited on for our meals to be brought out, we watched as the manager, a small man, went about snapping his fingers at his staff and yelling at them constantly on how to do their jobs. Nothing pleased him as he scowled and berated his employees. A couple waitresses were in tears. Well apparently my face showed my displeasure at watching people that were working on Christmas Day - away from their families -being bullied by this horrid little man. He sent one of his waitresses over to our table to talk to us because he could tell we were upset, in his mind because we still did not have our food. I informed our waitress that, at least at this point all was fine, we understood it was a busy day, but I did share with her that if he were to come over to our table I would share my displeasure on how heinously he was treating his staff. He never showed. After an hour and twenty minutes went by and we still did not have our food, I finally asked the waitress to please send him to our table. Several tables around us had been seated and served as we sat on waiting for our Christmas dinner. He again never showed. Instead she came back in tears. At this point we decided enough was enough and we decided to end our wait. My friends husband set out to tell this manager about his displeasure at waiting now over an hour and a half for a meal that never showed and also his disgust at how horridly he could treat his staff. The manager argued even with him and then went off to scream at his staff once again. Can I give you a review on how good the food is here? Absolutely not. I will never know, but I can assure how ever good it is, it is not worth a 1 1/2 hour wait. My sympathies go out to the staff here, because NOONE deserves to be treated as poorly as these folks are. I say stay away, because I don't think this man deserves the business. I'm not going to put money into the pockets of this mini dictator who can't appreciate and support a staff working on Christmas Day. I hope his staff realize that they deserve to be treated with respect and compassion, and that they make a stand and find a new place to work where they will be treated as such. Hopefully the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas yet to come visit this Ebenenzer of a boss tonight and set...

I am truly shocked at the 4.2 rating of this diner with over 2,000 reviews. It is RARE that I vehemently disagree with a rating with that many reviews. I rarely leave a negative rating, but this place deserves a negative 4.2, not a positive 4.2. Google literally needs to allow a zero rating.

We chose to patronize this diner around 0900 on a Sunday morning. 9 staff members were visible upon our awkward entrance as people kind of just stared at us at the 'wait to be seated sign'. Finally a waitress is a very heavy smoker voice rudely said "follow me". Perhaps she was annoyed at her 8 coworkers who just stood and lingered around us?

The table they sat us at was filthy. Full of sugar and not clean. A dozen empty clean tables surrounded us and they chose to sit us at a table that was never cleaned after the last patrons??? Gross. The attached picture is the booth side where I was seated. The window sills and windows were equally appallingly NASTY.

I can honestly say we were served the worst breakfast foods I EVER had at a restaurant or anywhere in my life. The scrambled egg was a flat disc. Most likely powdered egg. Zero flavor and barely tasted like egg.

Hands down the worst biscuits and gravy I've ever seen. Again, not a single spice or flavor to the gravy with a dry flavorless biscuit. We were utterly shocked. The hashbrowns came In a huge pile that were incredibly thick and undercooked in the middle with an extreme crust on the outside. Perhaps cooked in a few minutes in a big clump on the griddle? It would honestly be hard to emulate how it was cooked. They also lacked taste and needed to be heavily salted and peppered just to get some of it down.

The country fried steak was ruined with the same confusing white/yellow gravy that was served with the biscuits and gravy.

The whole meal felt like it was cooked as fast as possible in a SUPER BUSY restaurant that was actually only 20% full. In fact, there were as many patrons as employees.

The lone positive here is that the plates were full and the helpings were generous. However, if the food is NOT good, this doesn't matter.

The 'sweet tea' was honestly so bad neither of us could drink it and ordered water just to have something to drink. It literally tasted like sugar water with the SLIGHTEST taste of steeped tea.

Lastly, it is unpleasant to smell thick cigarette smoke every time waitresses walk by your table. It lingers and for non-smokers, it is quite repulsive.

What an incredibly unpleasant dining experience. There is NOOOOO way this place has a legitimate Google rating of 4.2. Clearly there are a ton of illegitimate posts to boost their rating. This is the first time I've encountered this.

The picture shows splattered something all over the booth I was seated in. Perhaps a washcloth could at least clean a lot of the interior...

This was some of the worst food my family has ever had. I thought that since the parking lot is always packed every time I drive by, that this had to be a great diner. Well I was wrong. The brown gravy on the mashed potatoes tasted like water, and the mashed potatoes were cold and completely unseasoned(unfortunately all of my family members got mashed potatoes and gravy, and none of us could eat them). Meanwhile the chicken croquettes I got for a special were almost inedible because of the amount of salt used in them. Wished some of that salt was used on the other food items. Everything was bland, and tasted like it wasn’t fresh. Also, they only have like 5 side items. I thought that was kind of strange. No Mac and cheese? No green beans? They only had cottage cheese, coleslaw, applesauce, cucumber salad, and unseasoned lima beans

The bathroom is dirty, and you can see dust on things, which means that it isn’t being cleaned well. There was also an employee in the restroom that had a cut and was bleeding everywhere (I feel awful for them), and other employees in there helping them. Well there was blood splatters all over both of the sinks. I went back into the bathroom 30 minutes after they exited, and even though multiple employees aside from the injured one had been in the restroom, no one decided to clean up. There was still blood everywhere. I understood the injured employee was incapable of cleaning up at that moment, but couldn’t someone else do it? Who can work with food, serving the public, and think it’s ok to leave a biohazard in...