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Dear Diner…To Danny’s Diner in Porter Square

This is the first installment in what I hope to be a long series of diner reviews/letters in and around the Boston area.  It will always start off with “Dear Diner”.  So I will call it my Dear Diner column.

The goal of Dear Diner is to help enforce a code of honor for those looking to either start or who own a diner in the Boston area and have stayed afloat because of its great food or for basically just being the only game in town for diner food.

What inspired me to start this column, despite my love for all things “diner”, was my horrid experience at Danny’s Diner in the Porter Square area and it made me realize that good diner’s, especially in this part of the world, are hard to come by.

Yeah yeah, you may be saying, “hey, it’s just a diner.  How difficult can it be to whip up some burgers and scramble some eggs?”  But to me, a diner is more then it’s simple comfort food.  Besides, I strongly believe that even comfort food can turn out horrid if not enough love is thrown in the mix.

One clear sign of “no love” is how one presents their establishment to their patrons.  Are there pictures on the wall?  If so, are they personal or just fake tourist pictures of Greece when really the owner is from India.  Are the floors extra greasy from the lack of clean up at the end of the day?  In the case of Danny’s diner, when there’s a leak in the ceiling do you put a bucket under the leak or just let your rug soak up the disgusting roof water?  Unfortunately for Danny’s, they decided to go with the latter option causing their soaked filled rug to overflow with Sunday’s rain.  Patron’s coming in learned a quick lesson, “To eat here, you have to be a balanced individual”.

This wasn’t my first time to Danny’s.  When Amanda and I were a couple of weeks from moving into our first place together in Porter Square we decided to check out the local flavor.  During a run, we both spotted Danny’s Diner.  Situated right on Beacon Street right next to the famous burger joint, R.F O’Sullivans and across from the amazing Petsi’s Pies (get one of their pies for your Thanksgiving dinner this year).  Our first trip I remember ordering your basic breakfast – eggs over medium, side of home fries, bacon and rye toast.  Amanda ordered an omelet.  You would think that our meals would come out at the same time except you would be wrong.  In fact, hers came out first, the more complicated dish, and mine came out, well, it came out after I asked where it was.  The cook, who you can watch in the open kitchen, clearly missed the order.  To top it off, the waitress brought out our toast a few minutes after delivering the dishes and when the toast finally arrived it was floppy and poorly buttered.

Fast forward two or three months.  We had friends visiting who attended a wedding.  We attended a friends party where “flip cup”, a favorite beer game, was played to end the night.  So it made sense that our first reactions in the morning were for some greasy diner food.  We thought it was time to give Danny’s a second go, hoping for a change in both service and food.

Unfortunately, the same result.  This was the moment where the rain dripped slowly on to the floor where a rug soaked up the droppings and nobody working seemed it important to secure the floor or to place a sign, warning patrons of the wet, slick and greasy diner floor.  Once again, eggs over-medium were the last and final dish to come out and were once again clearly forgotten by the cook.  He cooked it so fast that instead of over-medium, the eggs were basically sunny side up – a style of eggs I stay away from on all accounts.

I may be harsh here and perhaps for the sake of the diner I should have ordered another meal instead of the basic breakfast, but in my opinion, if you can’t be won over with the very basics, then I’m not sure it’s worth taking it to the next step.

Sorry Danny, the dish stops here for this diner fanatic.

Sincerely,

Luke “Kip” Owen