Elm Street Diner — Restaurant in Stamford

So yes two stars because service was THAT bad!

We drove 2 hours ( one hour because of traffic) to take my husband for his birthday dinner.... we were extremely excited because we had seen so many tick tock and Instagram posts about how amazing it was.... We were seated within 15 minutes of arriving but that is when the service got weird.... we had not even got our butt completely in the seat when the waiter asked what we wanted for drinks..... We had no idea what the options were, everything we asked if they had all he said in return was " Pepsi" ok well I guess we will all have Pepsi.... He brought them and practically slammed them on the table... Each one splashing out. And he asked then what we wanted to order.... so we just said we are not ready yet.... well that was a big mistake because it took us literally 18 minutes to get him to come back and take our order..... Ok so now order is placed and we are waiting to be served, my oldest son excused himself from the table and went to quietly order one of their crazy cake milkshakes to come as a surprise after our dinner.... my son was trying to hide this from my husband and the waiter walked back to our table and asked out loud at the table what type of cake we wanted, my 20 year old son stood back with the biggest look of disappointment 😞 anyway..... The request was for a big birthday surprise of a lot of chocolate..... About 5-8 minutes later here comes the whole staff with our ice cream order singing happy birthday..... We still haven't even got our food 🤦‍♀️ I asked for the manager and had them take it away..... To make a really long story a tad shorter.... We had to wave our waiter down just to get drink refills... Again to get Togo containers.... again for the check ..... So $126.50 bill for four later and no dessert because we just didn't want to wait any longer for them to redo it and it possible not be chocolate like we wanted.. .. Our meals were very good!!! But service was so bad I doubt we will bother trying again anytime soon Don't forget to check out the pictures to see the 30 birthday dessert that was supposed to be chocolate and come after dinner.... its friggin cool looking...

Bad Customer Service and Experience at Elm Street Diner – Thursday, June 24 around noon.

During a recent visit to Elm Street Diner, several significant service failures were observed that highlight a disconnect between the restaurant’s stated mission and the actual behavior of its staff.

Despite the visible presence of at least five team members in the service area, the wait time for someone to take an order exceeded seven minutes. This delay, particularly in a setting that was not overcrowded, indicates a lack of active customer awareness. Additionally, the server failed to confirm or repeat the order, leading to mistakes: the requested juice was never brought proactively and had to be asked for again from support staff.

Once the food was delivered, no one followed up to check if everything was satisfactory—something that should be a basic part of any hospitality protocol. The situation escalated when a hair was found in the dish. A request was made for the manager to ensure kitchen staff were wearing proper sanitary equipment. While a verbal commitment was made to look into it, no visible action followed, showing a lack of follow-through and urgency in addressing a serious hygiene issue.

Finally, when the incident was reported directly to the manager, the response was equally dismissive: a mechanical answer was given with no surprise, empathy, or meaningful action. This attitude reinforces the perception of weak leadership and a lack of commitment to continuous improvement.

It is unfortunate that, despite offering good food and enjoying a high volume of customers, the restaurant fails to maintain even a minimum standard of hospitality. The values it claims to uphold are not reflected in the real customer experience. This gap between brand promise and actual behavior erodes customer trust.

Serving food is not enough—it’s about creating an experience. And when hospitality fails, everything...

I really enjoyed the idea and most of the experience at elm street diner. We got there around 1pm on a Saturday and as expected it was packed. We had to search for street parking but luckily when we circled back we found a spot in the parking lot. We had to wait in line to be seated for about 35 minutes which I wasn’t thrilled about. The biggest issue I had with the waiting was that several smaller groups were seated before us and we continued to wait because we were a larger group (6). No reservations are able to be made ahead of time which seems unfair. The guy definitely saw we were getting frustrated and did make us a kind of makeshift table and I did appreciate that. We ordered our food and milkshakes and waited another 20+ mins for the milkshakes to come out. And then an additional 30 for the food. We were starving by the time we got to eat. We ordered so many different things (Buffalo chicken Mac n cheese wrap, Mac n cheese short rib grilled cheese, banana Nutella pancakes, pancake breakfast tacos, and more! Honestly everything I tried was great. The cake shakes are just order as a base and they add in what they see fit for the toppings. They’re $23 which is a lot. But 3 of us shared one and we all had plenty to go around. All of the portions were very large and reasonably priced I thought. We did ask to order something to go and they said they can’t do that on the weekend for some reason. I don’t really see the difference between doing that and just ordering something and asking for a box so that was a bit odd. Overall it was a frustrating start but the food was really good. I’d go back...