Golden Spoon Diner — Restaurant in Ocala

The pictures make this place look better than it really is unfortunately. The interior of the place is definitely outdated, but ultimately what a place looks like is irrelevant when it comes to dropping a lot of money to eat out if the food is good.

Unfortunately, the food was substandard. The steak was VERY light in color, cooked well enough but still had zero char on the outside which adds all of the flavor. To me it wasn't worth it. My mother and my son also didn't think the food was fantastic. Just a mediocre meal that could have been cooked so much better at home. This is the trend I find with going out to eat lately.....I make it better myself at home.

I ended up ordering an additional item to go so I could eat it at home later. The first problem I had with it to go order was not waiting until after I had tried what I was going to eat and the restaurant before placing the to go order, because truthfully I wouldn't have ordered a meal to go if I knew it was going to be the quality that I had received for the dine-in experience, The second problem was it was not what I ordered whatsoever and I did not know it was not what I had ordered until I had actually gotten home and open the to-go tray. I guess that is kind of my fault for not checking while I was in the restaurant, but at the same time every single person at my table heard me specifically order a buffalo chicken wrap, and I ended up getting a chicken cutlet I guess it was? I really don't understand how the two could be confused, but with the prices it cost to eat at a diner, this was extremely frustrating. As it was the rest of the meal was not that great to justify almost $100 but then to have the to go or be a polar opposite item of what you actually clearly ordered was quite disappointing.

All I'm saying is don't let the fantastic pictures of Great looking food that are listed on the reviews set an expectation for you to have a great dinner out. This place is not that busy, at least when we went and it should have been an indicator, but we didn't feel like cooking at home that night so we proceeded only to be let down which is what my gut feeling said was going to happen upon walking into the establishment.

Be prepared to be disappointed! Just because it's edible doesn't mean it's worth going. I won't be back based on my 1 & Only experience there. Good luck to the rest...

Took my mother here for her 78th bday over the weekend because she wanted to try somewhere new. It was ~6:30pm on a Saturday night, walked in and the place was maybe 1/3rd full, so we got a table right away. My mom ordered a catfish dinner, my nephew ordered the Land and Sea (10oz strip steak and crab cakes), and I ordered a blackened scallops dinner.

For being as slow as it was, the food took forever. When the food finally came out, my nephews "10oz strip steak" looked like it sat under a heat lamp for 45mins. It was like 1/8" thick and was so well done (when it was supposed to medium-rare) that the steak knife couldn't barely cut through it. Seriously, it looked like a giant dog treat....for $20!! I've seen better steaks at Denny's. The crab cake, well I thought it was a hush puppy at first, basically burnt on out outside. He got fries and tots as his sides and the tater tots were horrible, no way around it.

Both my mothers meal and mine were supposed to come with hush puppies, neither did. She actually enjoyed her catfish, which was a good portion, enough that she gave some to my nephew since his steak was nasty. My scallops were mediocre at best. Pretty damn dry honestly. I got mashed potatoes and cole slaw as sides. Cole slaw was decent, the pitiful, tiny scoop of mashed potatoes was bland as all could be.

Not once did ours sever ask if wanted refills. We basically didn't see her from the time the food hit the table until the time we finished, again with only 1/3rd of the restaurant being full. When she finally decided to come check on us, she didn't ask if we wanted dessert or anything, just said "is this on one check or separate?" Wow. Great service! (I'm rolling my eyes hard right now). $60 for dinner that should've been $20 considering the quality of the food and horrible service. We're not the type to complain, so we didn't really say anything until we were leaving. Even then the person at the front door didn't even say "hey, thanks for coming" or anything as I was getting ready to leave, that's when my mother voiced her displeasure.

I hate seeing small restaurants fail, because we need more of them here, but this place won't last a...

We visited the Golden Spoon Diner for breakfast on a weekend in January, 2025. It was fairly early and they were fairly quiet upon our arrival. We had a seat in one of the booths near the front windows. We really didn’t see much of the parking lot, seated lower to the window itself, so the view didn’t seem bad considering. They have dedicated breakfast menus, so this whole review pertains to the breakfast hours. Later could be different. So keep that in mind. Our waitress (and manager according to her name tag) was named Ericka. I hope that I spelled that correctly, if not, my apologies. She was friendly and we had no complaints with her that I can think of. So thank you Ericka. The prices seemed somewhat comparable to other area establishments. As always, I would say that the prices are subjective to peoples opinions. So your opinion may differ. So I didn’t find them overly expensive. But like the times, they are not inexpensive either. I guess average for the area. We found the breakfast to be okay. It was not bad, but not the best we’ve had either. Don’t get me wrong. The food was decent, just okay though. And to add, this was only breakfast. Tastes do vary as well. And lunch and such may be even better. But we didn’t try lunch yet, so I cannot comment on any differences. That is my take on The Golden Spoon. I tried to keep the review with in reason. Anyway, they are worth a try. There’s a more than likely chance that we will return...