I remember my first experience at a diner: Art Deco-inspired architecture, narrow and long floorplan, jukeboxes, neon signs, quick service, and extremely tasty pancakes with chocolate syrup! Granted I was only 7 or 8 years old then, but I can recall everything (how can I forget the taste of those pancakes?!). Since then, I've been to quite a few diners, including diner-restaurants (i.e. faux diners). I would go particularly on the morning after a night of partying and/or drinking, when I'm feeling too lazy or hung over to cook something decent without burning myself and my kitchen. On these mornings, I would typically order pancakes or omelettes with a side (usually hash browns) and coffee. Honestly, I've never eaten anything other than these breakfast staples at a diner.\n\nMy friends and I arranged to have a late brunch one day at Ritters Diner. Now, I didn't have much to eat the night before, so I couldn't wait until we met to have something to eat. So, I came to the diner having already eaten a light breakfast. A quick observation of the diner made me realize that this isn't a traditional diner; instead, it seemed more like a diner-restaurant. Oh well, there was still the service and the food to worry about. We sat down at a booth in the large room in the back of the restaurant. The waitress greeted us and took our drink orders immediately: two cups of coffee and two glasses of water. Several minutes later, we got our coffee and water, but weren't ready to order just yet. We spent several more minutes deciding, and when we were ready, we placed our menus in a neat stack in the center of the table to show that we were ready to order. We waited...and waited...and waited some more. Minutes turned into half an hour and longer. By that point, my friends were getting quite hangry. I was sitting there feeling sorry for them and very concerned with the poor service. This whole time, I was monitoring discreetly the other diners who had our waitress and arrived after we did. A few of them actually have gotten their food, have paid, and have left. After what seemed like an eternity, our waitress suddenly materializes and takes our order.\n\nWe get our food: chocolate chip pancakes; club sandwich; spinach omelette with cheese and buttered toast; and something else (sorry, I must've had too much coffee). My omelette was decent; I would have preferred if they hadn't used too much cheese, especially what I think was American cheese (it could've been cheddar, but the taste didn't seem right). The toast was good, but I was too full to keep eating. I did try a bite of the chocolate chip pancakes, and it was so rich and delicious! My other two starving friends pretty much inhaled their food in minutes.\n\nBased on this one experience, I would come only for the pancakes. Service was really bad even though the place was half empty. I might experiment with this diner once or twice more to get a better feel for it.\n\nSo to summarize: not a real diner, service was bad, food was decent, and come for the pancakes.
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