Hubbard Avenue Diner — Restaurant in Middleton

Excellent Breakfast with One Misstep.

I met my daughter here for breakfast and it was very good. Arrived at about 8:50 on a Saturday morning. There is plenty of parking around and across the street from the restaurant.

A mask is required because of Covid.

The restaurant has an old diner feel. Chrome, diamond plate, vinyl-covered stools, and Formica tabletops. Everything was clean and the lighting was good.

I was greeted by the hostess as soon as I walked in. She was very friendly, grabbed a couple of menus, and led me to a two-person booth. The booth was a tight space, but still nice. I had been concerned the restaurant would be crowded this late in the morning, but fewer people were eating on this Saturday. Maybe Middleton wakes up later.

My server was friendly and upbeat. She introduced herself (Yasmin) and asked if I wanted anything while I waited for my breakfast companion. COFFEE. Yasmin was back in under a minute with coffee and something I have not seen in a year when dining - a coffee pot. They list the coffee as bottomless on the menu and I could refill my cup. This was a nice touch and kept me from having to flag down Yasmin if I wanted more. The coffee (by Colectivo) smelled wonderful, had a great flavor, and was hot. The trifecta of the coffee world.

After my daughter arrived and had some time to look at the menu, we both ordered. My daughter had the Traditional French toast, a side of sausage and fruit. I had the Mile high omelet that comes with hash browns and a biscuit. We engaged in small talk while waiting for our food and after about ten minutes it appeared at the table.

The French toast consisted of six thick half slices of bread that were cooked to a beautiful golden-brown color. The fruit was a mix of grapes and melon. The sausage patties were a good size and browned well. My daughter pronounced all of the items delicious and offered me a sample. I had to pass on the offer.

My omelet (covering half of the plate) was cooked to a rich yellow color without a hint of brown - someone knows what they are doing. The hash browns occupied the other half of the plate, were crispy, and browned nicely on the outside while soft on the inside. The only letdown was the biscuit. It was large with an almost lacquered top and looked like it had just been plucked from the oven. I would soon discover that looks were deceiving.

Inside the Omelet: The blend of peppers, onion, ham, and cheddar was cooked to perfection. There was a hint of crispness left in the vegetables. The ham was warm and juicy without any browning. And the cheese was a melted pillow inside the fluffy egg blanket. I needed to add more salt and pepper, but that is just me. They also had @CholulaHotSauce (one of my favorite condiments) at the table.

The Hash Browns: The exterior strings of potato had a pleasing golden-brown color and crispness. They had the perfect snap and crunch. The flavor was all potato. No hint of unpleasant oil that some restaurants use. The inside of the hash browns was soft and pillowy. I did not see a hint of salt or pepper on them which is fine with me - I usually need to add more anyway.

The Biscuit: The biscuit was presented on a side plate with butter and a jelly packet. It looked homemade. It looked beautiful. A craggy golden-brown top with a sheen to it that was almost shiny. I could hardly wait to taste it. Alas, after I cut into the outer crust and tried to spread the butter on the soft interior I was greeted by cold disappointment. The biscuit was cold. What a shame. The next time I visit I will make sure to request they heat the biscuit.

One misstep does not warrant a poor review.

There is plenty of variety to choose from and I believe that most breakfast seekers would be extremely pleased to dine at the Hubbard Avenue Diner. The restaurant began to fill up around 10 AM so you may want...

We had not been there for a few years but we always really liked the service and food and pie! We went yesterday about 4:30pm. It was dead inside, maybe 6 customers total including us (it was Halloween so people probably eating pizza at home so they can take kids out or answer their door). But strangely there were ALOT of servers, more than the number of customers! There was a tall guy standing at the back looking our direction the entire time. He may have been the trainer or manager but it made me uncomfortable because it seemed he was staring right at me. The waitress we had was not very friendly. Not overtly unfriendly just not welcoming and gave the vibe of wanting to be anywhere but there. Anyways I ordered half sandwich and soup. Friend ordered BBQ sandwhich and chili. They brought his chili. She should have asked if I wanted to have my soup at same time but she did not. I just let it slide. Friend was not crazy about his chili. She brought food. Now I had my soup which was best part of meal. It was mushroom rice soup. There was also chunks of squash in it, which I love squash but not in this type of soup. But it was still good. The sandwiches were both "meh" okay. We asked for extra napkins because BBQ sandwiches can be messy. She took FOREVER and then she brought 3 paper towels. Strange. We did have 2 napkins when we sat down so I doubt they were out of napkins. The waffle fries, which we paid extra to get, were terrible. They were either under the heat lamp a long time or fried twice. They were hard and no flavor. Just bad. Friend wanted more diet coke at some point and our waitress was not being attentive at all, she was idly flattening some sort of boxes for recycling. So we asked another waitress. Then she brought our bill. She did not even ask if we wanted dessert at a place that is VERY WELL KNOWN for their pies! Sigh. Anyways we requested our pie. He got the coconut cream pie which was excellent. I got the black forest because it had the chocolate silk pie on the bottom part. Unfortunately the chocolate silk part was rubbery (gross) and the cherries on top tasted like canned cherries, ug. I did not finish my pie, and for me, that is unusual. Overall in terms of food and service, it was...

The pie is fantastic - I maintain that point of view. I was impressed by the way they handled my original poor review, due to service issues, so I have revised my original post (see later comments, which are still applicable, but I had not thought about it from their perspective). The manager contacted me about the post below and noted that in his mind not selling the whole pies to me meant that they could get more pieces of pie to more people (to lessen disappointment with the issue) which is a valid point I had not considered. Also, he conceded that they should have removed the whole pies from the patisserie display and managed inventory better around a major day like Mother's Day. Here is my original post and perspective in which I posted last week - Care more about profit than people - but good food and pie. I went in on the day before Mother's Day to get a pie for my wife on Mother's Day. As you can imagine they were down to just a few pies. However, they did have a Heath and a Grasshopper pie out in the patisserie display and when I asked to purchase them they told me that I could not buy a whole pie because they needed them to sell by the piece for dinner service that evening. I understand that you can make a lot more $$ selling pies by the piece than you could a whole pie to a single customer. However, if you are going to have them out there - they should be for sale. If you don't want to sell them from the patisserie display them please remove them. You can imagine I was pretty upset that they would do that to earn maybe an extra $10 for each pie. Businesses have to consider the long-run impact of customer service. I will not buy another pie from them so the $10 of profit they earned last night just cost them 10x that in the future. Congrats on your short-term focus on profits. Also, you might consider hiring someone to look into your inventory management so that you make a few extra pies before the...