Vernon Diner — Restaurant in Vernon

The last time we went, we had a 15 minute wait and then were taken out to the patio (we wanted to be inside, but never given the option despite empty booths inside). We were greeted by John, a young guy (maybe still in high school) who was polite, but obviously new to waiting tables. He took out drink order and then our food order after bringing our drinks. 10 minutes later, a manager thought it would be a good idea to open up the retractable roof and windows. Keep in mind, it was 70° and 20 mph winds as a storm was rolling through and we were in between cells. Napkins, straws, creamers and other things were blowing off tables and onto the floor, but hey... we were getting a patio experience. Ugh. After waiting for over an hour and ten minutes for an order of chocolate chip pancakes and a chicken sandwich, I tried to flag down our elusive waiter. Eventually I caught his attention and asked him how much longer will our food be. He said he would go check on it. Another ten minutes passes and I'm ready to ask for the check, pay for our drinks and leave to find food somewhere else. Our server comes out with our food, which was hot. Our guess was that he forgot to put our order in as there were several tables who were seated well after us who were finishing up their lunch. We didn't have any utensils or napkins, so I had to flag down another waiter who was much more responsive. The food at least was warm and tasted OK, although my dish looked like it was thrown on the plate in a hurry. We cut our eating short as my son was too cold. What made this even more of a disappointment was that the whole meal cost $40+ and both of us were cold only 30 minutes into waiting for a lunch that seemed to never arrive. Getting into a warm car never felt so good. We will not be coming back for a long time after...

Baffling experience.

The good: the atmosphere was fun, and our waitress was super nice. No issues at all there. And, for what it's worth, you get a lot of food for the price.

Speaking of "a lot"... You know how, when you go to a restaurant with a menu as thick as a dictionary, you can be pretty sure that all your options are gonna suck? Yeah, that's this place. Quantity over quality.

First interesting thing: one of our meals came with a bread basket. It had a piece of regular bread, and a piece of what we thought at first was corn bread. Nope: it was cake. Like, boxed yellow cake mix. Weird, but whatever.

I order a gyro, which says it comes with a side greek salad. The waitress asks if I'd like vinaigrette on that. Vinaigrette on a greek salad? She says they don't have greek dressing. Okay. When the salad comes, it's just a regular green salad with some feta sprinkled on top. Fine, but don't advertise a greek salad if you can't actually make one.

The gyro was super salty, but not terrible. The meatloaf was nearly inedible. French onion soup... Inadvisable. There was a surprise side of green beans, which tasted like they came out of a can, but I don't recall ordering them, so I guess I can't complain about that. The fries, to their credit, were fine.

Anyway, if you're driving through and you just want a burger and fries -- and you want enough for leftovers -- this place is probably a safe bet. Otherwise, don't expect much...

This is a place I would give a second chance to. It's super cute, has the diner vibe and our service was good. Not excellent but still very friendly. We visited later in the evening but nowhere near closing time for them. We had a little bit of everything between us at our table. My sandwich and fries (Reuben with corned beef) was dry and tasted old or like it was cooked on a dirty flat top. It wasn't the worst sandwich I've had but was extremely lacking and my fries were either held under a heat lamp or forgotten about by my server. However, another of us who had the French toast (cannoli), was extremely satisfied. They were excellent. Sweet potato fries had by another table member were also very good but the other person at the table who had a sandwich and fries had the same experience as me. Dry, old fries and very disappointing sandwich. We got several desserts to go and those were very middle of the road. They did not justify the price tag and I wouldn't get anything from the dessert case again in all honesty. I will be back early to try strictly the breakfast menu, which is where I feel that they really do well. My last comment would be that my coffee was unfortunately very old. All in all, interesting stop, some food is very mediocre to bad, some is excellent and the service...