SurfSide Diner — Restaurant in Palm Beach

What a disaster! It's beyond comprehension that this place has so many positive reviews. I’m starting to wonder if they’re actually genuine or if they’ve been written by people who have never set foot in here or people who accept to be treated badly. This was a nightmare of an experience and a clear example of how NOT to run a restaurant. Let’s start with the booking. The youngster who greeted us promised a 10-minute wait – it turned out to be 35 MINUTES before I finally had enough and walked in to see te reason of the delay. Meanwhile, we watched other similar parties being let in. When I pointed this out, he assured me that they’d sort out a round table near the entrance, "in just 5 minutes." Guess what happened? He let another party take that table, and they arrived long after us. Brilliant! After another 10 minutes of waiting, we were finally seated, without even a single apology for the awful handling of the situation. And note that, we had two hungry little kids with us. Once seated, it took another 10-15 minutes before we saw a menu land on our table, and then another 15-20 minutes before we could even place an order – during this time , no water nor coffee was offered. And then, 30-35 minutes later, just when we were about to walk out, the food arrived. And let me tell you, it was nothing special – omelettes, toasted bagels, and some juices. Hardly a 3 course menu. Now, here’s the kicker: when I tried to express my dissatisfaction to the waitress, her response was a snarky, "Well, there’s a lot going on in the kitchen." You can imagine my shock when I heard her answer, specially when I saw how other parties, who arrived after us, had ordered, eaten, and even paid before we even got our food! As for the food? Yeah, it was exactly what you’d expect from a place that has absolutely no clue – basic, uninspiring, and nothing worth getting excited over. Certainly not something I’d ever pay for. And to top it off, the 20% mandatory tip – which, by the way, is added if you're six or more people – for such a miserable experience and dreadful service is a downright insult! The customer should decide if a tip is warranted, not a place that expects it as a given without delivering anything in return. Meeting customers with such arrogance and indifference is the equivalent of kicking them in the stomach and hoping they’ll come back for more. My simple advice: do yourself a favor and choose somewhere else. We will never set...

Had the most atrocious excuse for a panini here today: A caprese with chicken on focaccia, (allegedly) with a pesto aioli. Not sure how something so simple could be so horribly bad, but it was. First of all, the sandwich arrived drowning in a pool of juice from the 6 chunky tomato slices that were squeezed onto the thing—and the oil of several inelegantly large slabs of mozz sliding away. After I deconstructed the soggy mess to remove the offending tomatoes, I tried my best to muscle through at least half of the panini because it was late and I was starved—and the staff was looking a bit over-burdened, so it seemed likely that a new dish might take a bit.

I realized that without the watery tomato situation, the bread was actually super dry and basically flavorless (I feel like a bit of oil or salt usually gives focaccia the delightful richness most of us associate with that bread, but this seemed like a generic supermarket starch—void of such dimension 😳). Perhaps the tomato juice washed away the majority of the pesto aioli that was meant to offer the sandwich some excitement, because the chicken also was sorely lacking in the flavor department; white, dry, unseasoned grilled chicken probably wasn’t worth the upcharge, in hindsight. I aggressively coated the chicken, mozz, and arugula from one half of the sandwich with salt and pepper to get through at least that much.

I had no idea I could be so disappointed by such a basic item, but here we are. I’d probably not even consider it again after fleeing my diner stool in search of a real lunch, but for the endearingly apologetic server who kindly told me he did try to give me a discount—but his manager declined, as they believed I’d “eaten everything” (a point which my mostly-full plate hilariously contradicted).

Cute place, mostly lovely staff, but overall such a bummer. I’d say go the extra mile north to Green’s if you want some solidly excellent diner food and overtly friendly...

I road my bike all the way down to this diner for a nice late lunch. Set down at the counter and I was the only person sitting there. There were a few other peoples in the booths having conversations. There was one TV in the place playing CNN news. After I order my food I made a simple request if they could change it to Fox News. The waitress said “I don’t think we can do that.” She had the manager come over and said he said, “I can’t change the station to Fox news it’s the owners policy.” I said, “I’m sitting by myself and the only one watching the TV, why should it matter what station I want to watch? Has anybody in the place asked to watch CNN?” He said “no”. I said well I’m asking if I can watch Fox News. He said ”I’m sorry the owner won’t let me do that.” I said “this is a restaurant where both conservatives and liberals come to eat. I’m the only person watching the TV right now. If I asked to watch Fox news what’s the problem with that? I’m the customer, you don’t want to cater to the customer?” He said “sorry we have strict orders not to play Fox News”. I said, “you know this wasn’t really an issue until it became an issue, if your owner is so politically bent that they can’t played a major cable network at the request of a customer then you’re basically telling me I’m not welcome here.” I left. Because I can honestly answer the question. If a customer came in and wanted to watch CNN I would turn it to that station for them, even if the only thing on there is total Trump bashing and not real news I would do it for them. Why? Because I’m a restaurant, not a political organization. If you are a conservative basically you need to know, this place does not welcome you. They will break all customer service etiquette to let you know, “you are...