Garretts Mill Diner — Restaurant in Stow

I recently returned to Garretts Mill Diner for another delicious and filling breakfast. This time I enjoyed the full stack of pancakes. The full stack consists of three pancakes with butter and syrup on the side. The pancakes are great tasting and not too thick. I, also, enjoyed a side of great tasting sausage patties.

I recently had breakfast at Garrett's Mill Diner located in Rockne's Shopping Center on the northwest side of Hudson Drive in Stow, Ohio. There is plenty of free off-street parking at Rockne's Shopping Center. The wheelchair curb cut/ramp from the parking lot to the sidewalk is in front of Rockne's. Garrett's Mill Diner is immediately adjacent to Rockne's to the west.

Stepping into Garrett's Mill Diner is stepping into a friendly, welcoming diner. There is a small counter immediately to your right with the kitchen and service area along the east wall behind that counter. Straight ahead are a number of tables with the restrooms to the north of the dining tables.

They request you wait to be seated. Two friendly gentlemen are the primary staff. Brian the Owner and the cook interacts with the customers since a short wall separates the kitchen from the dining area. He can see over that short wall and converse with his customers. The other gentleman seats the customers, takes your order, serves you your food, clears the tables and is the cashier. The day I was there they had another young man in training to help with the dining area.

They make you feel like you are a guest in their house. There are many repeat local customers so they know the majority of their customers and their families. There are a lot of local topics discussed and updates on neighborly news. Very homey atmosphere with folks coming in for take-away meals too. When vendors make deliveries they are offered coffee just like you would offer your neighbor who stops by.

All meals are prepared fresh when you order. With one cook this is not a fast food restaurant. You taste the freshness of your meal with every bite. The meals come out of the kitchen hot and tasty - no heat lamps here.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy breakfast. Very hearty and great tasting. The biscuits are not hard hockey pucks but are soft enough to cut with your fork. The sausage gravy is not too runny or too thick like a Thanksgiving gravy. The gravy is chock-full of sausage bits. You do not need to hunt for the sausage bits in the gravy. They are in every bite you take. You get your choice of egg and cheese to top off the biscuits and gravy. I selected scrambled eggs with no cheese. The eggs are perfectly scrambled - no rubbery nor runny segments. There are some home fries to complete the dish. Yummy! You eat with real metal utensils not plasticware and on real plates not disposable plates.

Their pancakes look tasty too. I will try the pancakes on my next visit.

They offer lunch and breakfast. The serve cocktails too. Garrett's Mill Diner is truly a family diner. All ages are served and feel at home. There is a cute high school couple having breakfast. Middle age friends and couples are dining there. Retired folks are enjoying their meals too.

Take a gander at their website. On St. Patrick's Day they had an eggs & kegger event. Just like a neighborhood block party. Brian is a creative...

Hmmm, I've been wanting to try this place for sometime now, but I often forget they have limited hours. Breakfast is my favorite meal, so breakfast-themed restaurants are always of interest to me. Inside is smaller than I expected from the outside and absent of any real decor. It is somewhat clean, but could use a good scrubbing, especially the carpet. Tables are not comfortable or welcoming, but the Staff is, and they are very friendly. Garretts Mill offers typical breakfast items with a few unique items on the menue, like the large slices of grilled cinnamon bread served with a vanilla sauce. It reads better than it is. The bread was indeed sliced largely, which would have been fine on its own since it was insufficiently grilled and overly sauced with a too sugary and flavorless sauce. My husband had a Western omelette with which he seemed happy. You are offered 4-5 different breads to choose from for your toast...nice! The homefries are atypical...they are more a hybrid between a home-fry and a smashed/mashed potato...when grilled sufficiently, they have a nice crispy exterior, but are otherwise mushy. Perhaps mine were soggy because I had fried onions added. I believe the onions had been previously grilled and were now wet and flavorless, which then made the homefried potaotes a mound of mush. My husband did not order added onions, and his potatoes had a crunchy exterior and looked more appetizing than mine. Everything was under-seasoned, but adding salt is easier than taking it away! My daughter had oatmeal...and it was pre-packaged, somewhat disappointing for a breakfast and lunch-only place. How hard is it to make real oatmeal. Heck, overnight-oats is easy, healthy, tasty, and popular. Her side of fruit was fresh and generously proportioned. My husband said the coffee was good, but my tea was a cup of hot water and a single lipton tea bag. Though he was offered a...

Reuben. Corned beef was excellent. Cheese wasn't melted. Dressing unevenly applied but tasted good. Light rye which I prefer to the ubiquitous marbled but it wasn't toasted or grilled sufficiently. It was dried out but not browned. As a result the sandwich was messy but missing any flavorful crunch. The proportions were good for me. I don't want a huge corned beef sandwich, but it was disappointing. Not enough to complain about; that would just be wasteful, but overall the sandwich was sub-par. I'd give it a 3. Had the hash browns. They were unpeeled, sliced, golden potatoes. They seemed nuked and grilled but it was a lump grilled on the outside. The only real flavor was the skins but the matted texture was off putting. Peels were too much. Again, not to send back, but not to eat, either. Got ketchup and hot sauce. Those came in plastic containers which was too food service for me. There wasn't enough of either but since I didn't eat the potatoes there was too much of both so waste plus plastic! Winning! Partner got savory crepes which were ugly but reported as excellent. The crepe looked perfect. Filling was proportional to the crepe in my opinion. In other words, it wasn't an over stuffed burrito. But they weren't plated in any attractive fashion. Just sort of poured into the plate. For me the experience was a 2 but I would try more breakfast-y things again. The crepes were probably a 4. And no, I didn't complain. I was good. It was ok. I am not going to cheat a hard working establishment...