city cafe diner

crabbyartist. the bad reviews i've read really surprise me. (maybe they're from another restaurant?) we have been there several times & it has always been great. we have ordered something different each time...again great. my husband was a chef at some upscale & some not so upscale restaurants, and he also loves this place. i think as far as attitude it was even better. we spoke to thewaitress& the manager & let them know how pleased we were. the service was great, the food came out in a timely manner & was presented well. the cleanliness was sparkling & the large display case was in impectable condition. the waitresses were dressed well and we're tidy about themselves. i honestly dong understand why there are anything less than excellent reviews. maybe competition? as for thr desserts - nobody is forcing them on you. if you want ambience, then go to an upscale restaurant & pay an upscale price!
as for us...we'll be returning!

ew eww ewww. okay so my family and i recently visited the city café diner and man was it horrible. the first thing i noticed was the door. it was disgusting with chipped paint and it just looked unsanitary. next we walked in and i saw that the counter where the cakes were being displayed was falling apart on the inside. the lighting for the display case was falling down into the cakes. and the cake labels were made from scratch sheets of paper where someone wrote the name in sharpie? how unprofessional. scrap paper? really?

then we were seated and it was freezing! and the menus were disgusting! we received our drinks and the glasses were filthy. with our drinks we were served loaves of bread that were black and cold (visibly not fresh) the butter that was served with it was sticky as if it were left over from breakfast.

upon asking ourwaitressfor fresh bread she offered to microwave it, stating that's all she could do.

we got our meals two burgers and two pasta dishes. on one of the burgers there was what appeared to be a scab on the bun and the fries were dark brown.
with the pasta dishes the sauce for the pasta was clumpy and there were different types of noodles in the dish. (fettuccini noodles in the spaghetti)

while we were eating we experienced a lot of things such as a dirty ketchup bottle and a server washing tables with dirty water (when she squeezed the water out of the towel it was black -_-)

all and all this place was terrible and should be closed down!!! nothing we ordered appeared to be fresh.

city cafe diner gets an f for cleanliness. went to café diner 2nd trip. had a semi pleasant dining experience the first visit after waiting awhile for meal the waiter made up by being attentive. 2nd visit rolls were underdone in the center, pure dough unbaked. when it came time to leave my6 yr daughter opened her to go cup she had been drinking from to get some pepsi to go and to our horror the cup had brown sticky looking gunk smeared all over it which she did not see when they first brought it due to the pepsi filling the cup and a lid being on the cup. when i brought it to the attention of thewaitressand asked to see the supervisor he was very defensive and tried to take the cup to throw it away. i literally had to take the cup out of his hand and let him know the health dept. would be informed. it took every ounce of my being not to throw up all over the table. not even an apology!

repeatedly horrible service. one visit thewaitresssat at a booth two over and called her boyfriend to complain that two customers came in just when she was getting ready to take a break. food was okay that night. another trip, it took an hour to get our food despite it being a quiet 9pm thursday night. waiter did not know menu, but was nice at least. my food was inedible - country fried steak hockey puck with rubber eggs. i said something to the manager, hoping he'd take it off the bill since i did not eat it, but all he did was give us a slice of stale cake.

blah - won't be going back. oct., 2012: i selected this place for a small group (6) colleagues for a work luncheon last friday. my trepidation was the gigantic menu, b/c seriously, who can successfully create 300+ dishes?! however, it is new, and convenient to work, and the prices could accommodate different budgets. of note immediately were, a. the noise level (super loud, as in can't hear the person next to you loud) and b. how packed the place was with cubicle jockey types scarfing down massive plates of food.
first our group was inappropriately divided up between 2 adjacent 4-top tables (hello, we are a group, that means we want to sit together), then moved to a larger table. our bubblywaitresslaunched into her explanation of the menu. (not necessary, we get it, it's a big menu -- what are the specials, if any??). i stuck with breakfast, which was ok, except for having to ask for my side of turkey sausage 3 times, even after discussing it with the manager on duty (mod). when it arrived, right at check time, the turkey sausage was just like jimmy dean's frozen and it was overcooked. my breakfast dish selection was the "hobo banquet," a skillet full of hash brown potatoes topped with melted cheese and two eggs any style. it was not served in a skillet, but on a plate, i didn't taste any cheese and the potatoes were largely diced spuds, not your typical hash browns-- all woefully under seasoned. the eggs were delightful, though! they did the eggs right!

other oddities: a colleague ordered her omelet without mushrooms and instead got extra mushrooms; thewaitressbrought an "extra plate of food the kitchen had made, in case anyone wanted it;" our drink glasses were often empty; and the only compensation/acknowledgement for the mistake in the overly mushroomed dish was that it was ignored (by all, including the manager) until it was nicely removed from her bill. soooo, for over an hour, she is staring at a plate of her least-favorite food: shrooms!
a super-low-maintenance colleague ordered the spanakopita and ate nearly all of his, and his wife had some type of stuffed bell pepper dish. she is not one to complain, but i noticed less than half of her plate was touched and another tried the chicken cordon bleu, which he described as very bland. to their credit, city café diners' desserts are apparently wonderful and i was surprised at how gigantic each dessert item is! huge! the dessert prices gave us all sticker shock as the honoree of the luncheon loves desserts and picked 3 cookies and a slice of cake "to go." the price? 23.00!!!!

thewaitresswas apologetic, the manager on duty was, too, and they both mentioned that they've" only been open 6 weeks and are 'slammed' and to please try us again when things settle down" on our way out. i won't be back. the service is slow, but not heartless, the food is woefully forgettable and the crowd is noisy and cumbersome. i wish them luck, but, they're not even up to speed with their "partial" menu, now, so, unfortunately, i don't anticipate the dining experience here will improve. hopefully, for them, they will prove me wrong! good luck!

went there last night. i ordered chicken salad wrap with steak fries. my husband got sausage egg omelet with hashbrowns. ourwaitressdid not know half the questions we asked her about the menu. my chicken salad had no seasoning. salt and pepper would have been nice. steak fries were cut potatoes fried almost burnt. my husband's hashbrowns were nasty semi shredded potatoes with no seasoning. then we got desserts, for a slice of cake and pie it was $7.50 each!!!!!! the cake (strawberry shortcake) was very under seasoned a little sugar would be nice. i will not be going to this under season plates of food and way overpriced again.

good food...overwhelming menu!. after some friends told me of their recent visits to city cafe and the extremely diverse menu, my wife and i had to try it out first hand. upon arrival, we were seated promptly and ourwaitress(shamir) was quite attentive and more than happy to help us navigate the menu. it was indeed very expansive and diverse. while we carefully studied it, shamir brought out a large sweet bread with butter and some spanakopita (spinach pies), standard pre dinner items that were appreciated. my wife and i finally decided on a greek dish called "pastichio", which is a greek version of lasagna and the "odd couple", which consisted of a sirloin steak and stuffed tilapia. surprisingly, with those two platters, you also received a cup of soup and a salad. the soup, a greek lemon chicken soup, was incredibly delicious with a robust lemony taste. both entrees were served on large metal platters with healthy portions of greek potatoes, rice and vegetables. the steak was cooked perfectly and the stuffed tilapia was very flavorful and moist. my wife was also very pleased with the pastichio, which she has had on previous occasions at other restaurants in boston. we were so full after the main meal that we didn't even take a second look at their vast desert bar, but plan to on our next visit. the prices were a little higher than normal diners, however, as many other reviewers have indicated, there's enough food for left overs the next day and perhaps the day after. we both really enjoyed our meal and the atmosphere, which is very kid friendly. i will say that their breakfasts look terrific and is on my radar for our next visit. overall, a very good restaurant with so much to offer that it could be some time before you run out of things to order here.

awful awful awful. ate breakfast here. had philly cheese omelet. awful, awful, awful. omelet so overlooked and scorched could not eat it. it should have never made it to our table. not going back.waitresswas nice but she never checked on us after we placed our order. we had to ask for her. it took quite a long time to get breakfast. there were three other tables waiting.waitresswas too busy talking to a couple she obviously knew.

poor food, bad staff. my spouse, adult daughter and i went for dinner last night. my spouse ordered cornish hen stuffed with meat and wild rice – the hen was stuffed with hamburger meat and 99.99% of the rice was long grain white, he literally found 3 grains of wild rice. i ordered stuffed mushrooms – i got 4 tennis ball sized globs of stuffing with a small mushroom cap stuffed in the bottom, yeah a total of 4 mushrooms! my daughter ordered an open faced roast beef sandwich, which was "ok", with a cesar salad, she specified very little dressing – it was drenched / dripping with cesar dressing. during our meal we had the pleasure of overhearing the conservation between ourwaitressand a waiter, the waiter was asking her to swap tables with her – the conservation ended with ourwaitresstelling him, "do whatever you f*****g want to!" needless to say we will not be returning.

first time here. it was very busy but the attention and service were spot in. i had bacon and eggs breakfast . ourwaitressmichelle was great. ask for her!