Bingham's — Restaurant in Lenox Township

On our road trip we planned to stop for breakfast. We chose this restaurant solely on a billboard….yes a billboard, not based on reviews. But it was a simple billboard not too far from the exit, quick and easy to read and we got the feeling from the billboard that this was exactly the old school authentic diner + type of restaurant we were specifically after.

It is at the base of the exit, can’t miss it, very convenient when you are traveling. It was evident we made the right choice when we saw that the parking lot was full and there was a wait inside. Though when we asked the hostess how long the wait is, she said 15 minutes and she was spot on! And we were the third party waiting for a table!

As soon as you walk in the door, you can see the amazing looking homemade pies. Soooo many and a wonderful price for a whole, homemade pie. Also many other sweets to choose from.

They make their own breads (including sourdough) so when you order your breakfast, the waitress asks if you want the homemade rye or the regular…..well homemade OF COURSE!!! :))

The food was very good. I got the Sourdough Slam, which is a scrambled (or you can have fried) egg, bacon and pepper Jack cheese on sourdough bread that is then grilled….DELICIOUS!! Our other order was a simple two egg breakfast with sausage, home fries (which we requested onions in them) and rye. Once we ordered, our food came out very soon and it was all nice and HOT, even the eggs! We were very pleased and impressed by that. The eggs were cooked perfectly. We only have one complaint about the food and that is that the onions they threw into the home fries were tiny, minced onions that had been sitting around…..the kind you might put on hotdogs and they were TERRIBLE! I would expect some nice sized pieces of good, fresh onion grilled right in with the potatoes, especially in a restaurant like this one. Our only other complaint was that there were several fruit flies (or a little bigger type than that) flying around us at the table. There were some random house flies in the seating area too. It’s not fun to see those in a restaurant. But, even though that was a bit annoying (and gross), overall, this was an EXCELLENT CHOICE when on the road looking for a fast, quality meal. Oh, and the cherry on top was that our bill, with one coffee and the two orders mentioned was only $18 before the tip!!!! That was a very nice suprise and very much appreciated in this world of high prices these...

My husband and I stopped for the first time for breakfast Friday 8/20. We waited about 10 minutes to be seated which was fine. Got to our table and waited about 15 minutes for a waitress to take our order, but they were busy so we overlooked it. Our breakfast was served quickly, was hot and delicious. We enjoyed it so much we decided to pre-order baked goods for Sunday on our way back through. They pride themselves on fresh homemade pies, breads and cream puffs, and our rye bread at breakfast was SO good I ordered 3 loaves, along with 3 loaves of cinnamon raisin 5 cream puffs and a peanut butter chocolate pie because our server raved about it. Picked everything up yesterday (Sunday) for them to say they sold out of cream puffs even though i pre-ordered them. Theu said someone called off and they normally pull the pre-orders in the morning but they didnt and they apologized. Things happen, but I was bummed. The cinnamon raisin loaves were frozen. Had I known that I never would have ordered, because as they thawed they got crumbly and dry and cracked. And the pie? It's literally the peanut butter chocolate pie recipe on Philadelphia Cream Cheese packages. Nowhere near worth $17.99!!! Out of the 3 loaves of rye bread one looked decent, I swear the other's had an off color that made them look like they too were frozen. Disappointed is an understatement. 3 stars simply because they would have 5 just for breakfast and none for the pre-order. I felt duped to have spent so much on a less than mediocre haul of...

The legendary Bingham's of my younger days seems to have been relegated to a locally owned version of Perkins only with inferior desserts. This is the second time I have ordered the turkey dinner expecting the great home-style cooking I remember only to find it was a mediocre assembly of not-so-much turkey (pretty good for what was there) and too much wholesale canned gravy and stuffing. The two redeeming sides I did enjoy were the baked sweet potato and the steamed broccoli though it was a little underdone for my taste. Thinking I could at least enjoy dessert, I ordered the famous cherry pie that's depicted on their sign out front. I had it boxed and brought it home for my evening treat. This was the biggest disappointment of the nearly $30 meal (with tip), consisting of some wholesale canned red gelatin of sorts with about 4 cherries thrown in a preformed frozen crust! The abundant number of waitresses were all very friendly and attentive though they seemed to be 'over-employed'- almost bumping into each other running back and forth with little errands between the kitchen and the baked goods area. My advice to management, for what it's worth is, please go back to your family history and dig up the old recipes & just cut back a bit on the wait staff so you could lower your prices a tad to match my lowered expectations of the great...