The Original Steve's Diner — Restaurant in Town of Penfield

So, so disappointing. I had been looking forward to trying Steve's Diner for a long time. I went to the Penfield location two days ago and I wish I hadn't gone. I ordered a huge breakfast, which included two ginormous pancakes (their specialty), three eggs, three sausage links, and a side of home fries. The pancake's size (quantity) was impressive. As for quality? Meh. Decent, but nothing special, in my opinion. I ordered my eggs over easy. They arrived closer to over medium and not especially warm, which means they probably sat too long, allowing the yolks to harden and the three eggs to cool off. The sausage links were honestly the most bland, tasteless sausages I've ever had. And finally, the home fries: also served lukewarm; also, their home fries are made without onions? I've never heard of that. And adding a few slivers of grilled onions costs an up-charge of $1.50? It's not like I wanted a couple tomato slices or slices of bacon. Guys, it's onions. Come on. Really?

All of the above was adequate and if it was just the so-so food I wouldn't be posting this complaint. The food certainly didn't blow me away but was good enough for me to come back another time and try other items on the impressive lengthy and diverse menu. But ... this would be comical if it wasn't so pathetic ... after I asked for a couple to-go boxes the server came back from the kitchen, apologized for their running out of large to-go boxes for the jumbo pancakes, and offered me three little boxes instead, each box roughly the size of a Big Mac container. If you've never seen the humongous pancakes at Steve's I'm guessing they're about 9 or 10 inches in diameter. Absolutely enormous. The server, with a straight face, suggested I cut up and shove these two massive pancakes into the couple little boxes. Huh? Seriously? The server was otherwise pleasant enough, so, no complaints about her. But that was ridiculous. Instead of making me mash up the pancakes into relatively tiny boxes perhaps offer me a couple large strips of foil and a bag?

On my way out, without my leftover pancakes—of which about 3/4 was left uneaten—I asked to discuss my concerns with the manager. I was told by the host that the manager was not on the premises. Again, huh? Something else I've never heard of. The manager left the restaurant in the middle of a shift? Presumably, the manager was out borrowing some large to-go boxes from another restaurant to hold them over until the next delivery? How did they let themselves run out in the first place? I mean, honestly, for a restaurant that specializes in serving massive pancakes, it's like a pizza joint running out of pizza boxes. How does that happen?

In terms of atmosphere, the tables are a bit tight together. The neighboring table may as well have been sharing mine. Lame.

Again, not coming back to this poorly run restaurant but maybe I'll try one of the other locations. Wish me...

We went for the legendary giant pancakes and they were huge and delicious, the pancakes lived up to their reputation, however the rest of the experience was not so great. There were 3 in our party. We were told 20-25 minute wait but ended up waiting almost an hour. There was no waiting area or any space to wait and people were standing out in the freezing breezeway and outside, modeled misled by provided wait times. We were lucky enough to be inside waiting but were constantly in the servers' way, bumped into repeatedly and needed to move to let people pay and/or walk by. Had there been a disabled person or someone in a wheelchair, it would have been humiliating for them to have constantly been in the way and have people try and move around them. When we were finally seated, we were tired and hungry but figured breakfast wouldn't take too long to make and we'd be able to eat in a reasonable amount of time - wrong again. It took almost an hour for us to get our food too. My poached eggs were overcooked - almost hard-boiled and were lukewarm when they finally got to the table, my toast was burnt, and sausage was cold. The other 2 folks in our party said their food wasn't hot either, but by the time we all got out food, we were so hungry after waiting 2 hours for breakfast that we just ate what was in front of us and couldn't wait to get out of there. Our server never came back to check on us so I had to get up from the table and try to find her (which I couldn't) to ask for an extra set of utensils, butter, and creamer for our coffee, so another server bright it all to the table. When our server finally came to the table to drop off our check, she reeked of cigarettes and barely acknowledged us as she put the check on the table, mumbled an obligatory "have a good day" and kept walking. I won't be going back. I can say I've had the famous pancakes now, they were tasty, but not worth the several hours of wasted time and the prices were a little steep for breakfast diner food and...

I was pretty excited to come here. My mother ordered some eggs, toast and home fries. The home fries were more like soft and not crisp. They almost seemed steamed. Our food came out in less than 5 minutes which made me a little suspicious that it was put together. Sloppily. I ordered a Reuben because the menu said it was lean corned beef. Now, I have had dozens of Reubens in many places and they're usually not even advertised as lean yet they come out very lean or trimmed. I was excited because I haven't had a Rueben in 3 years since my favorite restaurant that carried them closed in Canandaigua. My sandwich came out very sloppily. 1/2 of the sandwich only had one piece of corned beef and the other had three and the sandwich was sliding apart. The bread was so entirely soaked that I picked off the corned beef because the bread was disintegrating. There was either too much dressing, but it looked like they didn't really grill the bread long enough. The corned beef was more than 50% fat. When I took all the corned beef off and removed the fat. I only had about a third a cup of corned beef. The fat was the really slimy kind which I hate. Definitely should not have happened, especially since the menu said lean. I was beyond disgusted. Our waitress was friendly and the bathrooms are clean but I will not...