Thomas's Ham & Eggery Diner — Restaurant in Town of North Hempstead

Left Thomas's Diner today (Monday 4/29, 6:00pm - 7:15pm), with mixed feelings. First I will share the following. Thomas's Diner is a very special place to my family and I. My first date with my husband was here, over 18 years ago. My family and I have always enjoyed the food and excellent service. Today, on one end, my girls and I had a not so pleasant experience, on the other, a great one. After a nice mama daughter day, we decided to have breakfast for dinner at Thomas's. When we arrived, we were politely welcomed by the Food Runner, whom always has a smile. He proceeded to ask for our drinks and brought menus and water to the table. Here comes the not so pleasant end of our experience. The waitress whom I don not know her name since she never introduced herself to us, never came to our table to welcome us nor ask for our order. We were sitting there for a few minutes with menus already closed, but the waitress kept walking by us tending other tables. To my surprise, THE COOK came by and asked us for our order. He was very polite to me and my girls 😊. He then proceeded to give our order to the waitress. I will emphasize, at this point, she still has made no attempt to approach our table nor exchange any words with us. Our food came out very fast and that was THE ONLY TIME the waitress came to our table. She simply brought our food and mentioned my order (blueberry lemon ricotta pancakes), was very good. We thanked her and that was it, she never returned. The Food Runner came to our table a couple of times, to ask if everything was good. We are so very grateful for his warm hospitality. When he noticed we were done with our meals, he asked if we would like a to go container. Let's just say, we wrapped our food, sat there waiting for our check, and again, the waitress never came. She kept walking by us, chatting with other customers and tending to them. After waiting for a while I asked her for the bill and we continued to wait because she never gave me the bill. The cook made quick eye contact with me and shook his head. It was evident he felt uncomfortable with the treatment we were receiving and by now, even my girls also mentioned the service from the waitress was not very pleasant. At the end I had to go to the cash register and once again, ask for the check. No apologies for having us wait, she simply stated she had to make me a check since the cook was the one who took our order. That was the end of that after thanking her. I have never experienced such treatment anywhere and sadly, I will say, I wonder if it was due to the color of our skin. I say this because the service she gave to the other customers, was so very different, and it was as if we were not even there. Through it all, I kept a smile on my face, I wanted my girls to enjoy our mama daughter day and not dwel on the negative distraction. I felt very much discriminated and it disturbs me even more because my girls were there. With that said, such treatment is simply unacceptable and I will be reporting this incident to BBB, Better Business Bureau. I thank the Food Runner and the Cook for their thoughtfulness and for their professional and kind service, they definitely get 5...

This is a pretty average place. Granted, I spent a few years in Rhode Island, which is the birthplace of the modern American diner. In summary, I wouldn't come back because it's somewhat expensive for what it is and nothing particularly stood out (in a positive nor negative way). Also, I had a questionable interaction at the end of my visit.

I visited rather early in the morning and was warmly greeted and promptly offered coffee. The decor struck me as very "typical" diner with plasticky/cracked fake leather seating on the booths. The air pleasantly did not have excessive "grease" smell, although I did visit around opening time.

I ended up ordering the corned beef hash special. At $11 (+ $1.05 tax), I don't particularly think that this place is a one "$" establishment. I liked that the potatoes arrived crispy. Your food also comes in its own little stainless steel sautée pan, for those germaphobes out there. Most diners I've visited prepares their food on a shared griddle space, so this individual serving was a unique surprise. It also came with a coffee (bottomless) and two slices of toast. I asked for rye with butter on the side, but oddly, it tasted like white bread and buttery. I don't really care though. To its credit, this place undersalts its food. I truly love this because I am able to adjust my seasoning at the table, whereas at most diner establishments, the food is over-salted and I feel pretty lousy afterward because of the sodium overload.

Something that rubbed me the wrong way was related to my being a racial minority woman(but born and raised in the USA, well-educated, and speaks fluent English without an accent). At the end of my meal, I asked for a line item on the hand-written tab to be clarified -- sorry, it's hard to read certain people's handwriting! It ended up being the tax, but instead of just saying "It's the tax", the cashier/waitress lady said "It is the tax. This is common everywhere in the United States." At that moment, it struck me that aside from the Mexican cooks in the back, I was the only minority in this establishment -- at least, at that hour of the day. I don't think she realized the micro-aggression but it certainly didn't make me want to return any time soon. Maybe I'll come back if a visitor really wants to eat at a diner, but I think I would rather serve breakfast from my home at that...

My parents used to eat at this diner in the 1950s. I was born in 1959 and I grew up in Westbury about 6 minutes from this restaurant. For some weird reason we only ate here one time during my childhood and that was in June of 1969. I was 10 years old and we had just flown back from Love airport in Dallas on braniff airlines. 3 days later I was shipped off to sleepaway Camp for 8 weeks. My meal here in 1969 was not memorable and I do believe that the current version of this diner is far superior to the 1969 version. I think the owner has done an amazing job with this restaurant. I wouldn't come back to eat here until 2021, 52 years after my first time here. These days I eat here almost every ery Monday through Friday morning and I love this place. My favorite employee here is Alec. When my waitress doesn't give me enough oatmeal, Alec always comes through for me and gets me a larger portion of oatmeal. But all of the waitresses and employees here are wonderful. This is one of the greatest breakfast places in the United States. I have been to 44 of the 50 states and so I have eaten breakfast all over this country. This place is truly special. It's amazing that it is still around. Up until a couple of years ago there was a uniform store very close to this diner that had also been around since the 1950s. How these two businesses had survived through all those decades is something that I find astonishing. This place is ridiculously crowded on weekends so I never come here on a Saturday or a Sunday. The food is awesome and I'm not just talking about the breakfast. Lunch and dinner are excellent here as well. The portions are huge. If I could give this place more than five stars out of five stars, I would because it's that great. When I'm traveling all over the country over the next three years on a 3-year, 48 state road trip, I'm going to miss this...