Circle Diner — Restaurant in Fairfield

What I want from a diner is the following: nostalgic ambience, solid, tasty, hearty breakfast food, slightly burnt but flavorful diner coffee and a charming staff. Well, Circle Diner was a real miss for me. I ordered the standard eggs over easy, crispy hash browns, bacon and a side single pancake. Yes, it's a lot of food! And my eyes were too big for my belly as the saying goes. The score for quantity of food is 5 stars. The eggs and bacon were OK, cooked as requested. That brings me to the hash browns, ug, there was an offensive smell to them and though they looked crispy, they were not. I told the waiter that I thought the oil they were cooked in was rancid and to give it a smell. He declined and asked if there was anything else I needed before putting down the bill, which was a whopping $23+! So, I called over whomever was in charge, to let them know about the possible rancid oil/problem and they said that the, "hash browns were not cooked in oil, they were cooked in margarine." What!? Maybe that was it, but whatever they were cooked in was disgusting and shortly after having a bite of them, my stomach was unsettled, which is not common for me. The coffee was burned tasting as it is in many diners, but it wasn't good coffee. Now down to the ambiance, there is none. TVs everywhere, the place is large and sterile for a diner. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I brought my bill up to the register and was expecting at least a little discount for the hash browns, just as a courtesy, but nope. I tipped well because the staff was fine, but this was not the quality I expected for an almost $30 meal. The bottom line; stay home and cook your own breakfast. Even if you get that diner itch, stay away...

You have to practice to be this bad at serving. Owner(?) who sat us just walked to a booth, threw menus on the table, and kept walking. After a lengthy wait a clearly overworked young man came over to say he'd be with us in a minute. Eventually a different young man brought water and place settings (still no coffee). Eventually he came over to take a drink order. Eventually he brought it back, to take our food order. Never saw anyone after that. My wife tried to ask him for a coffee refill. 10 minutes later, she asked someone else (who, to his credit, came right over), The whole time we were ignored, and wondered why we couldn't just leave. Food was plain, and cold, and felt like the kind of thing you'd put together yourself from what you found in the fridge - and you'd make it with more love than they did. It was edible, it was just ... dull. Then of course when you pay up front they're there asking, "How was everything?" and you kind of want to say, "Horrible, honestly." Their credit card machine also has 18% as the lowest tip, so you have to decide in that moment if you're mad enough to leave no tip at all and get into a whole scene, or you...

my husband and i have gone here for years - we have noticed the last year or so a real decline in the quality of the food , the prices and definitely the attitude. I read some reviews and people that have gone there regularly are also noticing the total overall decline in quality. Tonight my husband got a fried seafood combo for $20.75 - a small piece of fish five scallops the size of a dime and two shrimp. When we complained the manager said seafood is expensive and had a general attitude and talked over me the whole time I was trying to talk. Time to stop going there. . Also have any others noticed that what you get when you order take out from there is not the same as when eating in ? Do all the less quality bits and / or smaller servings purposely go into the take outs ?? You don't know until you are home and then it's too late. This has occurred to us at this diner a couple of times. Last time was a greasily fatty piece of meat not the lean cut we had expected. Today we decided not to go there again. We will recommend to others to find better places to go out to eat - there are plenty of them...