Darrell's Diner — Restaurant in Lady Lake

Darrell's on Bichara Blvd, The Villages (Lady Lake) FL. This is one of a local chain of restaurants. I have only ever gone to this particular restaurant but they all have similar menus. I believe only the specials, especially their soup of the day, may be different. All of their restaurants are open from 6am to 3pm, seven days a week. Having said all that, we -a party of five- arrived at the restaurant at 10:45am. They were very busy even at this, late for breakfast, early for lunch time, so instead of waiting for an indoor table , we opted to sit outside. Our wait staff was Desiree, one of their great assets. She greeted us and said that although it was now 11:02am, she would honor the breakfast specials that ended at 11:00am because she noted it took a while for us to get seated. She took our drink orders and left us with menus. Three of us went with breakfast and two with lunch. They have standard breakfast fare -eggs, breakfast meat, home fries, grits or hash browns and toast. The special includes a beverage. Also shown is an omelete. The two lunch orders were a Sunshine Burger. A hamburger with hash browns on the bottom, a burger, bacon and a sunny side up fried egg on top, all on a nice brioche bun. It came with one side, the option shown was potato salad. Also shown is a wrap, grilled, with fries. As I said the service here has always been great and so is the food. The wait staff, pleasant and efficient. Desiree checked on us often even though we were outside and literally around the corner of the building. Nice touches, like she brought extra hot water for my tea without being asked which was wonderful. I have always found the restaurant clean, inside and out. They are handicapped accessible. But they only have one unisex bathroom. They are in La Plaza Grande South plaza which makes for easy parking but it cannot be seen from the road. This is a large plaza and they are located near the middle. The sign is large enough to see, so that helps. A pleasant meal...

At 10am on July 31, I entered Darrell's Diner in Spanish Springs. There were a few tables taken outside and 6 or so tables on the inside were filled as well. I was alone, so I sat at the counter. I was immediately greated by Eddy. His service was friendly, overall very good. He smiled, interacted professuionally with the staff and guests.

As i waiyted for my order, I had time look around the place. This is where we go downhill fast. The picture frames were full of dust, the air vents were dusty and rusty and the surrounding ceiling tiles were just as crusted with dust. The 2 cooks in the back were consistently dropping Fbombs while making orders. During one of their colorful conversations, I looke dover to see the back door wide open. The door stayed open for quite a while. Once the dor closed it clearly read "This door is to remain closed during business hours".

At the counter I had a view of the storage in front of me. What I saw there was- glass cleaner and cleaning supplies held over a bucket of clean dishes, a purse stoed in with restaurant supplies, employee food lined up infront of clean silver ware, 3 employee drinks on the same counter as restaurant supplies, a box of straws under a soap dispenser, the list goes on.

Then th counter got wiped with a dry cloth, and that same dry black cloth that was used for cleaning was just thrown on the counter where the staff prepares beverages, rolls silverwate, scoops peanut butter. That same employee, then cleaned dirty dishes, placed them ina bin, took a drink of her diet Mt Dew, then went and handled clean silverware in the 4 compartment bin next to employee food, drinks without straws, and dirty towels.

Where is the managment to ensure our safety? These [people are food safety certified? Where is the common sense? Where is the passion? Maybe Darrell should open less resyaurants and focus on the quality in the restaurants already...

Been going to Darrell's for 4 years now 3-4 times a week, this past Thursday (4/25)I had a horrible experience. We also try to sit in front outside to enjoy seeing the people go by. A couple left the table by the door and I sat down, even though the table was not cleared yet, we've done this in the past. The manager on duty, Derik, came out and said there clean tables around the corner, I told that why I sat there. He said that there was a sign inside the door that "Please wait to be seated" (which could not be seen from outside). That sign has not been used since I've been going there and told him so, he got very rude and said "it's going to ne a long time before table got cleared", then he proceeded to go to the other two tables to get their orders and every time he went by the table he didn't bother to even take one dirty dish, like it was beneath him to clear a table. With that I told my friend that I was leaving, my friend said the Derik told him that he wasn't going to serve us until I apologised! All the other servers are always very pleasant and helpful.

I'll go back, but this experience has left me with a bad...