Eastern Depot Restaurant — Restaurant in Gorham

I went to the Eastern Depot with a friend for the very first time this week and ordered breakfast - pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and fried potatoes. I asked my waitress if they served real maple syrup and she said yes. When my meal arrived there was a standard ramekin of fake “maple” syrup on the side, but she set a tiny bottle of real maple syrup by my plate, which was an extra charge. I was very disappointed to find that they do not offer real butter for the pancakes - only hydrogenated margarine, which I always avoid. The sausage patties were much too salty, the potatoes were undercooked, and the blueberry pancakes were just okay - nothing special. But I let it go without complaint.

When we went to check out and pay our bill I noticed that the checker - our waitress - seemed flustered. She barked at me, “That will be $17.00!” which didn’t sound right to me. I asked to see my receipt and she scowled and literally threw it at me. I saw immediately that I had been overcharged by $2 - she had mistakenly added the iced tea that my friend had ordered. I had already paid her with $20 in cash, but the checker did not know how to subtract the $2 from my bill or give me my change. She became even more agitated and just plain RUDE.

When I asked if she could simply void the transaction and start over again, she snapped, “Have some patience!” I replied, “We have a deadline - my friend needs to pick up her handicapped child from daycare.” She rudely retorted, “Everyone is always in a hurry for one reason or another!” and continued to regale us with similar inappropriate comments until a supervisor arrived to take over. I have never in my 65 years been treated with such rudeness at a place of business! I returned to our table and removed the cash tip I had left for her - she had forfeited the tip by her obnoxious and disrespectful attitude.

I will not be returning to the...

This is a sad place. On week days it's acceptable fare, I guess. The place is completely outdated. It's a true injustice to the buildings character and history. Lots of potential, it seems the owners must have cashed out. Breakfast is very easy food to produce well. Nothing is farm fresh, everything just feels cheap and bottom of the barrel. Today we went in during the ATV festival (which doubles the local population, it was pretty much empty, despite being right off the ATV route. Our food arrived cold. I asked for a grilled muffin that came out cold and ungrilled. My friend had a huge hair in her corned beef hash. My other friend complained that his food was cold and they brought it back "nuked", stating they "hoped that would be alright". The seats are indented from their age and the pads constantly fall off the benches. The springed back door slams every few minutes as people come and go with a bang. It's done this for years and nothings ever been done to address it. They supposedly serve breakfast and lunch, yet they locked the doors at 11am today.....On a Saturday which is a brunch day. Just very pathetic. My friends had tried to talk us into going elsewhere, but it's location is ideal so we made the mistake of going. I was so embarrassed to have recommended the place to my friends. We ended up walking out and driving 30 minutes to the Water Wheel which has reliably excellent fare. What a joke......it's like...

2023 update: I am removing one star from my reviews (4 down to 3). When this place first opened it was great. We don’t eat here very often as are just visiting the area. The prices are way too high for what you get. The quality of the food does not match the price. Eggs are small. English muffins aren’t very good. It’s $3 extra for really maple syrup. That is normal. However, the syrup they have is not good quality syrup. It’s buddy tasting. More like commercial grade. At least now it seemed like it is refrigerated now. I ordered the big breakfast. Waitress offered add ons to the pancakes but didn’t mention to me it would cost an extra $3. I was disappointed when we got the bill to see that.

2022: For a super busy weekend they did pretty good. We ate twice here over the weekend of the ATV festival. There were only two negatives things. Both days my husband got an omelet and asked for pepper Jack cheese. Both times he got American. My son ordered pancakes with real maple syrup. They do not keep it refrigerated. Both days it had the flavor of syrup that is starting to ferment and go bad. Other than that everything else was great. Staff is super...