The Westmont

The Westmont Family Restaurant & Diner
Westmont, NJ
June 19, 2012

By Lauren


Menu: 4   Pricing: 4
Food: 3    Coffee: 6
Service: 3  Decor: 8
Bathrooms: 5
Overall: 4.5

The Westmont Family Restaurant & Diner is not a diner.

As a restaurant, it would probably receive a much higher rating, but we’re in the business of rating diners, and this just is not.

Why is this not a diner? The most prevalent of reasons is the lack of a dessert selection. To be fair, we came here looking for dessert. We weren’t particularly hungry for a meal at this point, but what we found was pitiable. Carrot cake and apple pie were the only solid food desserts offered. You could get pudding, jello, or ice cream as well, but this place calls itself a diner.

Besides an overwhelmingly disappointing dessert menu, this place lacked the solid spread of a diner menu. I would probably feel comfortable eating here as a restaurant, but as far as a diner goes - just no.

My first impression of this place was of poor service. The decor was solid and the place was lively, though not too busy. But our waitress seemed extremely disinterested in serving us. She sat us and walked away, came back a few minutes later to check if we were ready to order, we were not, and walked away again. She never asked for a drink order, and seemed impatient, even though the restaurant was not full. I felt unwelcome from the moment I sat down, and our party decided to leave as quickly as possible, partly because of the lack thereof desserts, and try out a different diner. The only time the waitress perked up was when we asked her to take our photograph.

The food. Well, the food was - the only thing we ordered was home fries, which was more like dinner potatoes than a breakfast side. They tasted oily and were not appetizing. Most diners pride themselves in a wide variety of desserts, mostly different kinds of pies and cheesecakes, but the Westmont Family Restaurant & (not a) Diner had a very lackluster, not to mention pricey, selection. Not to mention the waitress’s displeasure in answering our dessert questions. Pricey menu, with little variety.

Coffee! Decent. Certainly not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but for a diner offering, definitely above average, if just barely.

And the bathrooms! Pretty standard single person bathroom, clean, but overall forgettable - except that everything seemed oddly low to the ground.

Overall, the restaurant is not a diner. It is clean with a nice atmosphere, minus our waitress, and a little bit expensive. Is better served as just a restaurant.