West 22 Diner

This is a diner. It is not the Ritz Carlton. The food is tasty and the service is good.  I am a fan of the pancakes and all the choices they offer for breakfast which is a main staple of the American diner.

We visited this diner when it first opened and the food and service were pretty decent.  We always had one particular waiter who was Hispanic. Victor was terrific and the food ALWAYS came out as ordered and hot. Waiter always on top of game with filling water and soda glasses promptly and checked back frequently to see if anything was needed.  We then had this one older blondish waitress come to our table. Our meals came out wrong, never came back to see if the meal was OK or if a refill was needed. Just dropped of the check and that was it. We brushed it off to someone having a bad day.  The next several visits, we ended up getting this woman and the problem just continued. Well done fries came out cold and white, glasses never refilled.  A well done burger came out mooing rare..etc.  Finally, I asked her what her problem was with us (my mother in law was not there) and why our food has never come out correctly and her service just awful. We told her that our first several visits when we had Victor, we never had these issues.  Her response was that she was NOT Hispanic and all the kitchen help does not speak English and that is why her orders never come out correctly.  The other tables she attended to did not seem to have these problems.  Her comment was racist and we let the manager know.  Nothing was done and she is still there.  We decided to give it another try.  From bad to worse.  Decided to stop for breakfast.  Two omelets took over 20 minutes to arrive to our table.  They arrived cold and missing the peppers and onions we asked for our hash brown potatoes.  Toast was cold. Waiter takes the two plates back with the toast.  He brings them back.  They put greasy peppers and onions on top of the COLD potatoes and he just put the original toast back into the toaster as they were burned.  He put the burned side down so that it was not noticeable.  When we addressed this to him, he just stood there.  The owner was there (do not know his name but he apparently is a body builder).  I asked him to please come to our table when he was finished dealing with a customer at the cash register.  He was too good to come to our table, but sent the hostess to speak with us.  Bottom line.  Avoid this place like the plague.  Apparently, they do not care that they employ racists who let you know they are a racist, wait staff who are poorly trained and pretty deceptive and an owner who thinks he is better than the people who BUTTER HIS BREAD.

The friendliness of the staff unfortunately does not make up for the shoddiness of the food the kitchen puts out.   Most of what we ordered was under-seasoned and tasted as if it came straight out of a walk-in freezer.  My burger was completely bland, the fries were mushy and lukewarm, and Surly Boyfriend's toast on his similarly bland turkey sandwich was untoasted.  How do you not cook toast properly?

Our waitress was sweet, but spent way too much time sitting in various areas of the diner chatting with two other waitresses, which made requests for refills and extra napkins difficult as she was otherwise engaged.  She did check in to see how our food was, but this was at the point where we were nearly finished.  

Normally I like to give a place at least two opportunities before I review it, but I think I got a good feel for the place after one visit and we won't be back. There are too many better diners in the area to try, or I can just stay home and under-cook my own burger and fries for much less cash.