Leesburg Diner by Cafe Kindred — Restaurant in Leesburg

For sentimental reasons, The Leesburg Diner is one of my favorite spots in town. When I first moved to Leesburg in '96, it was virtually the only place in town. Over the years, multiple owners have updated the facilities. I am THRILLED that yet another ownership team has taken over and is giving it a go. I hope they make it. I hope they figure it out. However, my experience during their "soft open" was pretty disappointing.

During the soft open, they had way too many untrained staff running around with clearly no idea what they were doing. Sitting at the counter, it was an unpleasant distraction to have servers milling about in front of me, awkwardly waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They need one or two really expert servers / hosts to direct traffic.

But my biggest disappointment this time around is that the food seems largely unchanged since the last iteration.

Look, if you order a Steak & Cheese anywhere in Virginia, you're taking a huge risk. Virginian's don't know what this sandwich is and how to make it. For the new owners, here are some tips:

DO NOT put lettuce and tomato on a Steak & Cheese DO NOT put MAYONNAISE on a Steak & Cheese Be generous with the meat Yes, you need onions in the meat -- but keep the ratio around 10% onion and 90% meat. The sandwich I got was drowning in mayonnaise and about 50/50 onion & meat.

What you served me as a Steak & Cheese was disgusting and I'm surprised I ate it. This will be a very popular menu selection. Get it right! If you can't figure it out, drive down to Rubino's Pizzeria in Ashburn and try theirs.

Additional advice. I'm sure hiring is tough. You've got too many clueless teenagers running around. Find a couple of really experienced hosts and pay them what they're worth. You'll fail if you trust kids to deliver the Leesburg Diner experience.

Also, you need to bring back the famous Leesburg Diner peanut soup. I don't care if you have to make it from scratch every time it's ordered. It's a tradition you need to honor.

The place looks great. There's enough street traffic these days that you should be able to make great money. Improve the food. Upgrade the staff. Wishing you...

July 2022... Diner beware! Our table ordered a side of grits. It was watery,undercooked and bland. 1 taste taken and we asked that the grits be taken off our bill and were told "WE DON'T ADJUST THE BILL BECAUSE YOU ORDERED SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T LIKE". The issue was what was served to us was subpar in quality...not that it wasn't "wanted". Yep...that is their current business practice. NOWHERE is that stated in writing via signage OR on the menu's themselves. Speaking of the menus ...The menu's are paper and are not sealed or protected. I mention this because once you order...they take the menu back from you to give to another person...water droplets and dirty items laid upon the menu--such as a used tissue that we saw one patron place upon it--be damned. No sanitation for these items being passed from patron to patron. What was once a 4☆ review few years ago has now been amended to a 2☆. This has nothing to do with COVID. This is a reflection of their current business practices and a refusal to address serving a guest a dish that didn't meet expectations.

Visited with out of town relatives. Everyone enjoyed their food. My M-I-L enjoys her scrambled eggs "soft" and they delivered. They left a carafe of coffee for self service and actual cream in a small creamer...a rarity these days. The portions were nice sized and fresh looking. I opted for some wheat toast with my breakfast plate and it may have been some of the best wheat toast I have ever had at a restaurant.... moist and chewy. Only aside is parking... we had nice weather... but inclement weather will mean some exposure to the elements... and for those with mobility issues the VERY CLOSE public parking garage may still seem a bit of a walk. Honestly... that's the only consideration to an otherwise delightful and very fair cost to plate breakfast outing. Give 'em a try... you will leave with a full belly...

We had not been back to the Leesburg Diner since it changed hands, so we were greatly anticipating the new and improved restaurant. Sadly, we were underwhelmed. Gone is the traditional diner décor and feel, and in place was an attempt to make the place "upscale". The new owners have added baked goods, a bar, and fancy espresso bar, while changing the menu from traditional diner breakfast food that the previous LD was known for.

Now to the food. The coffee was good. It was the best thing we had, but nobody ever came by to ask if we needed a refill or leave a carafe. The hot chocolate was made with ganache and came out cold, not thick and chocolatey with a big satisfying dollop of whipped cream, as you usually find.

The breakfast menu of the old LD was gone. One of my favorites was the "LD" breakfast with eggs, home fries or hash browns, toast and breakfast meat, including scrapple, which made it the only place in Leesburg to serve scrapple. Now it is no longer there. The American breakfast is a shadow of the former LD, and the breakfast potatoes are sliced rounds and deep fried, neither hash browns, nor home fries. They would have gone great with a burger, but the large spongy disks are not conducive to breakfast.

The biscuit and gravy was a dense biscuit, not fluffy, more like a biscuit that could have come from a Pillsbury can. It had an odd taste, most likely due to the cheese, but not the flaky biscuit you want for sausage gravy. And while the gravy was thick, there did not seem to be much sausage. The other thing I didn't like in plating is that the eggs were put under the gravy, so you miss the egg yolk flowing over the gravy when you cut into it. Seems a waste of a good egg yolk to get hidden like that.

It seems sad that downtown Leesburg has lost its last great place for a real diner breakfast and substituted a place trying to be fashionable and trendy.

Oh, and bring back...