Riverdale Diner — Restaurant in Shelton

I used to have great experiences at Riverdale until the last year or so.

I just dined there today with my family. I got there at approx 11:23am (judging by a test message I received when I walked in). We only had one menu at the table, and my uncle was told that more menus would be brought over once myself, my husband and my 8 month old daughter had arrived to meet him. No one greeted us, brought menus, water - nothing. At 11:45am I got up and walked to the front after witnessing a table of 5 having been sat, greeted, given their beverages, and placed their order all before we had even been acknowledged. I thought maybe we'd been forgotten or overlooked, maybe a server was unaware they had another table - it was pretty busy.

The owner/manager (or whoever he was) was extremely rude when I told him that we had only one menu, hadn't been greeted, and had already been sitting for 15 minutes. He told me that "No, not 15 minutes." and proceeded to say it was too busy and was just completely argumentative. I told him not to argue with me, because I'm merely communicating to him that we've been waiting and I have a 8 month old at the table - which any parent knows it's difficult to keep a baby entertained for long periods of time. Apparently it was so busy that they didn't have enough menus to leave at the table because myself and my husband had not been there yet. He never apologized, just gave me an attitude and insisted I was wrong.

I worked in a restaurant for over 8 years and I've been a manager in food service for 5 years. The way he spoke to me was out of line and his need to brush off my concern and feed us excuses of the diner "being busy" rather than apologize and let us know that someone would be over shortly is unsettling to me. Every single time I've been at this diner, it has been insanely busy. If you know that your business is bringing in a high volume of guests, it'd be smart to stock up on necessary items and supplies - i.e. menus. If we had been sitting for 20 minutes looking at the menus themselves to prepare ourselves to order, I don't think it would have been as frustrating as it was to stare at an empty table and wonder if we've been forgotten or overlooked.

Our server, Devon, was the only good thing about this experience.

I'd rather drive 20 minutes out of our way for a diner managed by individuals who are actually kind and thoughtful when communicating. And if you're reading this, sir, you in the blue baseball cap, monitoring the hostess stand: I highly suggest you find a job in a different field, because hospitality and customer service...

We were talking with some friends Saturday night about local diners in the valley and how disappointed I was with the food at 2 of them. One of them recommended Riverdale diner so we decided to try it on Sunday afternoon. I went there once or twice many many years ago, so this is probably only my second or third visit. When we walked in, we were immediately seated. Now, when I go into a diner, I’m always looking for comfort food so for me it’s either meatloaf or the turkey dinner. I decided to try the turkey dinner. At two other local Valley diners the turkey dinners were very disappointing because they had absolutely no flavor at all,especially in the gravy. But at Riverdale, it was a bit different, the turkey consisted of both white meat and dark meat with gravy, which I really enjoyed because I did not get any dark meat at the other two diners. It came with a huge portion of mashed potatoes, a side of green beans, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. The gravy was also more flavorful than the other diners but could still use a little more flavor. My other half had a burger and tater tots. He ordered it medium, but it came closer to well done, but it was very juicy and had good flavor. Looks like we’ll be going back in the future because I need to try the meatloaf next and will probably check it out for breakfast soon.

Edit 28 March 2025 After I left work today, I called in and did a takeout order for a meatloaf dinner. It consisted of two large pieces of meatloaf, a very large portion of real mashed potatoes and a nice size portion of green beans. I have to admit that their meatloaf was very good for diner meatloaf. It was much better than one of the other diners that I had it in the valley and better than some more expensive restaurants also. It was about $17 for the portion and I’m able to get two...

The place is nice the server was great but the manager was beyond rude. My son didn’t like what he ordered ( the app. cheese quesadilla) it was spicy (it had spicy cheese that I didn’t know was in it) so I let the server know and just asked for something else (a kids grilled cheese). I didn’t say take the original item off the check or anything I just ordered something else for him. The server was great about it but then the manager walks over with the item my son didn’t like in her hands and questions me about how I ordered it, what did you say to the server when you ordered it, why I don’t want it, so you don’t want anything, so you don’t want this and was beyond rude to me and I stayed polite respectful to show my son we always talk nice to others no matter how rude they are we do not become disrespectful. I just said he didn’t like it, it was too spicy so I just asked for a kids grilled cheese. She then huffs and puffs as she walks away and slams the plate behind the counter (you could hear it through the restaurant). The nice serve then brings over the grilled cheese for my son and I thank him and wanted him to know he was great. We got the check and of course all the items were on there and I paid for it no questions asked because I did order the first item he just didn’t like it. So I’m not sure why that women was so rude like that. I normally have great experiences here and to be honest we normally order either cheese quesadillas or the grilled cheese when we come but this time it was different and that’s okay things happen no reason to make a big deal over something but this experience put a bad taste in my mouth that me and my family will not be coming back due to the unnecessary rudeness of that manager. Your tone, delivery and questioning of me was...