Bernie's City Diner — Restaurant in Florida

Proper food. Diner-size helpings. Good price. Decent service. A nice New York vibe. Love the pic of the Flatiron Building by the coffee station.

For my inaugural visit, I ordered the egg white scramble from the specials board. $10.99. Nice. Tasted like ingredients! Egg whites + spinach + mushrooms + tomato slices on the side. A tad flavorless, but that's as expected (I did order egg whites). Pepper was readily available on the table in a full-sized shaker. Also salt, but I skipped that.

Almost forgot! I also ordered coffee. Tasted like diner coffee should. Good!

Crowd was small -- not actually a crowd. It seems as though word hasn't quite gotten out that this diner exists (it does!) and has good food (it does!) -- so, I'll come back for lunch tomorrow. I don't mind avoiding a crowd.

Day 2 - another lunch

Today, I went with a special that wasn't on the board (not a secret menu -- the waitress told me about it), a fried whitefish. Note to self: I really need to order spicier food.

The fish was just fine, BTW. The coffee was consistent with yesterday's. Reasonable slaw.

And then there were the fries. These are good fries. I inhaled about half after tasting the first. The rest I consumed after the fish. Recommendation: don't put them off if you don't need to. They're better when crisp and do get a bit softer, later in the meal. Still good, just not quite as earlier in the meal.

One note: while I like the food and the service, I need to mention the background audio. If conservative/business(ish) radio isn't your thing, this might not be the restaurant for you. Fair? Fair.

(Love the 🍟.)

Day 3 -- More like brunch

Bernie's serves "all day" breakfast, so today I went for a pair of over-medium fried eggs, sausage, bacon, and grits with rye toast. Also, coffee (duh).

The eggs were on point, as were the rest of the items.

Also of note, the Bulliard's Cayenne Pepper Sauce. This is the first restaurant (definitely the first diner) where I've been served it -- and it's good! Not raw heat, but peppery...

Upon walking in We noticed the front doors were disgustingly dirty. That should have been our first sign. Ordered breakfast for three of us. Server was not very knowledgeable We asked if they made omelettes with pasteurized eggs or real eggs.... He said he was pretty sure they made him with real eggs but wouldn't go ask the kitchen for us. I ordered the Mexican burrito very unflavorful. We got an omelet literally only ate two bites, also lacking flavor. They tossed an old pineapple probably from the day before or older right on top of our home fries.... The bread that came with our meal was cold and then we asked for butter and he brings us cold butter to spread on our cold bread? The biscuits and gravy or mediocre. Too bad because they used to be amazing here. We also got pancakes with chocolate chips when they showed up there were no chocolate chips to be found. So then we had to sit there and look at our mediocre food why they made the chocolate chip pancakes. Honestly the chocolate chip pancakes are the only item that got eaten maybe two or three bites out of the rest of the meals. He picked up our food and realized we didn't eat anything but never asked us how anything was. Whatever we paid for it and got out of there and will never be back. Too bad we used to like this place. Server it was very unknowledgable didn't bring us plates for our biscuits and gravy appetizer so we had to wait at least 5 minutes after it hit the table to begin eating it. He never bought us maple syrup for our pancakes. Isn't that something that always comes with pancakes? We couldn't get them back over after he delivered the pancakes the second time so we just ate it. Xhoi was our server maybe you guys should...

I wasn't planning on doing a review today but grabbed lunch on the go today. I was very happy I stopped into Bernie's today. They have a nice welcoming environment with different seating options and you can sit where ever you please which is nice.

They have an all day breakfast menu, lunch menu, drink options including alcohol, and daily specials. The menu had many tasty sounding dishes and next time I think I'm going to try their chicken and waffles. The wait staff was friendly and engaging.

Today I went with the brunch burger. Overall I give this burger a 7/10. The bacon was good and crispy. The egg was cooked properly and wasn't too runny. The temperature was correct on the burger. It was not the tastiest I've ever eaten but the seasoning was good and the beef was good quality. The bun was toasted and was a bit nicer of a bun than the average diner. Definitely a good french fry. Crispy and flavorful with good color. Burger held up well and I say that because I've had a brunch burger fall apart in my hands before.

I'd definitely go back. Very deserving of a...