The Friendly Toast — Restaurant in North Andover

For all that this place usually has lines out the door when you go to the ones in the city, the food is just not what I expected it to be. It's fine. It's fine diner food. It's not spectacular, and if you're looking for great breakfast, go to somewhere like iron Town diner in saugus instead. The atmosphere is really cute and has a bit of a retro charm to it, especially the seats at the bar that have the old sparkly covers you think of from years past. Service is prompt and friendly, I have no problem with it, but I keep going back to the food and how it's just not that impressive.

The omelets don't really stick together. They dump out all their contents. The corned beef hash is fine, the eggs are decent, the home fries are pretty good, and the sausage I will say is good. The toast is thick, and has a good bit of butter, which is really nice. But they only give you one piece of bread with the food, which feels a little paltry. Also, I don't know what they think tater tots are, but whatever they're serving are not tater tots. Tater tots come here in groups of four, and the tots are as big as a couple of thumbs put together, and they're full of cheese or something. I really have no clue what these things are. It's more like some kind of weird potato croquette.

That said, this is not a greasy spoon, the food is all good quality and well-made. I just think it's not as good as amazing breakfast, which I've had at other diners.

I think I would be praising this place more if it didn't seem like the most popular thing ever. If you go to a friendly toast in Boston, you'll have to wait at least half an hour to get through the door even on a weekday. I really don't know why everyone is so obsessed with this place above other places that do good breakfast. Maybe it's...

There wasn't a wait to sit down but that doesn't dismiss the overall lack of care and severely underwhelming experience. The server was nice and carelessly attentive. They came immediately asked if we wanted any drinks and we were able to place an order of appetizers. The appetizers came but the one drink we ordered did not. The single drink didn't arrive well into the meal when we were done with our apps. Not even the typical glass of water was brought to our table without first asking. The app was probably the best part of the meal. The entree I ordered was cold and burnt. A strange combination considering the two variables. There's no doubt in my mind that the food they have available is delicious when execution is where it's suppose to be. The hash brown quiche cupcake concoction was VERY CLEARLY BURNT. brown and black in all the places it shouldn't and the eggs stuffing was colder than the bloody Mary I waited ever so long for. Luckily I ordered a secondary plate of pancakes which although weren't fresh and steaming hot was warmer than room temperature. During the conclusion of our meal the server just snagged our plates without question when it was very clear that one of the two entrees was untouched. Regardless of it being burnt and black it's still food I was expected to pay for so it's food I would've liked to take for left overs even if it meant I would give to stray dog down the street. Overall the service and staff were sub par, food well below any acceptable standard, but hey at least I had the opportunity to wipe down my seat free of crumbs so that the next occupants wouldn't need to. Will not be returning to waste more money on pancakes I can...

Pan-CAKE; I get it. It's supposed to be a cake cooked in a pan. I just wasn't expecting an actual cake CAKE flavor. It tasted like a better tasting yellow cake or confetti cake mix, even smelled like it too. It was definitely flavorful, but flavorful for what a birthday CAKE or cupcake should be; Not a typical American style pancake. There was no tang like what you would get in buttermilk pancakes (not that I was expecting a tang, but I'm just comparing it to a "normal" pancake taste) and I barely tasted that "hint of salt". It was just so sweet for my palette it didn't even need syrup AT ALL. I drowned it in butter to try to cover up the overly sweet taste. And mind you it was just a PLAIN pancake! I can only imagine how sweet the other ones on the menu are; with all that chocolate and sugar and syrup, let alone more than one in a stack like how most people order it....Makes my jaw cringe 😖...glad i only ordered one so i can try it...the most disappointing part is that I came in here specifically looking for pancakes, I've been craving them all week, I consider myself a pancake snob, and instead I got dessert. It just wasnt what i was expecting, doesnt mean it was inedible by any means. Everyone is different, some people like dessert type of foods for breakfast. I just don't like sweets for breakfast, (you know on an empty stomach first thing in the morning), I prefer savory flavors. To each their own, but this just wasn't for me. However, I'm going to try other things on their menu, and just pass this up specifically for pancakes. Their menu does sounds amazing,...