Olde Thyme Diner — Restaurant in Vincennes

Diner is in an old building downtown that looked to be an old bar back in its heyday. There's limited and somewhat cramped seating. I would limit parties to 4 maximum, but a couple will do fine here. They are only open for breakfast and lunch Mon, Thur-Sat and lunch only on Sunday (after church crowds).

We stopped in for breakfast on Saturday morning about 8am and the place was already about half full with customers. Most of those there were elder adults and my wife and I (50ish) were by far the youngest ones there until right before we left when a middle aged father with his young child showed up.

As for the food, it was pretty decent for the most part. My wife had avocado toast and half stack of pancakes. I has biscuits and gravy with hash browns and 2 eggs scrambled. Delivery of the food took longer than expected and not together. My wife got the short stack first but was not offered any syrup or even a knife, which we had to ask for after having to wait several more minutes after she'd gotten the plate. The avocado toast was set in front of me several minutes after her pancakes without even asking if it was mine or not. Even a few minutes after than my order of food showed up on two separate plates. So the timing of the food delivery was not very good and little attention was made to getting our orders correct and with basic necessities for consumption.

My wife liked the avocado toast. It had sriracha drizzled on top of the egg on top, which was nice. Her pancakes were just run-of-the-mill basic pancakes. My biscuits and gravy with hash was pretty good. The hash wasn't overcooked, which is something I find happens a lot in diners and is honestly a pet peeve of mine. The biscuits were easy to get into and the sausage gravy tasted good. I had to add pepper, but that's just my thing. It wasn't overly salted, which I greatly appreciate as well because that's something I also find happens often. As for the scrambled eggs, they were seconds away from being overcooked and rubbery. They weren't seasoned at all and they were flat in a sheet-like consistency without any fluff to them at all. They were the most disappointing thing we got. I would have expected much better for the eggs at a restaurant. I used the excess gravy and more pepper to help make them at least somewhat edible.

Overall, the pricing was ok for what we got except for the scrambled eggs. I would go back for the biscuits and gravy with hash and probably the avocado toast, but the scrambled eggs and pancakes weren't anything worth writing home about. Wait staff could be a little more attentive to their duties. The general cleanliness of the place could be better as the carpets need attention, there's dust and cobwebs all over on the fixtures and baseboards, the "bar" area could stand to be straightened up and cleaned allowing for more customers to sit at stools there and the front door isn't closing completely and staff/customers have to push it closed the rest of the way or it'll allow all...

There are better options in town. Small pancakes. Tourist spot.

Rather than giving you a check, they hold it at the counter. They don't give you a printed bill, they just tell you the amount. When you ask for the bill, they show you the hand scribbled order the waitress took. The help there is always freaking out, like they never worked at a busy restaurant before.

To owner - yes, feel free to use my review as a t-shirt. "Don't ask for your bill, we'll just tell you what it is." Or how about, "We have an excuse for everything!". Or how about "We only get full once every 75 years." Or how about "We freak-out if it is busy! That is who we are and we are proud of it!"..."We are the victims! Don't come here if it is busy! That is what my therapist said!"

But I think you may agree this is the best T-shirt option: on the front have two images of your short stack pancakes with a dollop of butter on top of each, and underneath have the words "Our short stacks are the best!".

Another idea for ya - use the new T-shirts during the new wet T-shirt contest! Then you'll fill all the tables every week! Then you'll get experience on how to handle a full room without...

Not much better than average.

Though the atmosphere is great and the staff is friendly, I just can’t rate this better than average.

Their major problem is their early close time. Due to this fact they often run out of their daily specials. The Olde Thyme Diner is located right on the edge of the Eastern Central time zone and has a 2pm close time on Sunday. So for someone from the other side of the river if you arrive at 12:30 for lunch, it’s 1:30 their time and they are winding down for the day. On weekdays it’s even worse, they close at 1pm.

That being said, my wife had the chicken and dumplings with mashed potatoes and green beans. Though the chicken and dumplings were good, she found the beans less than appealing.

I had the fish and fries, I was not impressed. The fish was hard and dry, though the fries were just ok. One shining star in the restaurant was the coleslaw. It was very much like my grandmother used to make and brought back memories of home. Overall not a bad experience, but...