Dearborn Restaurant - 105 Lexington Rd, Waterloo

4		4	4	3.5

Dearborn Restaurant - hidden away in darkest Waterloo - is a former frequent-breakfast-haunt of mine. Dave and I went on November 1st, since apparently Benny’s is packed on Saturday mornings at 10:30. Dearborn claims “Best Breakfast in Town” on its sign outside, which is how we first discovered it a few years back.

Dearborn offers a family-style atmosphere in one dining room with semi-open kitchen, carpets and wooden booths and tables, and an all-table tiled second dining room. They were doing steady business when we went in, but there were also plenty of tables available for a Saturday mid-morning.

Dearborn offers a pretty comprehensive - if standard - breakfast menu. It doesn’t offer much in the way of unusual items, but there were a good number of options for benedicts, omelettes, and breakfast sandwiches. We sat ourselves, and coffee was served almost immediately by an extremely friendly and efficient server; she also visited a number of times to see how we were doing and fill coffee.

Dave ordered a Peameal Breakfast ($8 plus $0.50 charge for rye), which he thought was pretty great - especially on the peameal end of things, as it was super thick and delicious. He commented that the toast was good (“definitely worth fifty cents”), eggs cooked fine, and the potatoes - slices of real potato done on the grill - were not as bland as some, but still underseasoned.

I ordered chocolate chip pancakes ($5.95 plus $1.00 for chocolate chips), and they were pretty good too - good texture, quite fluffy and flavourful - although I would have liked to see the (plenty) of chocolate chips spread through the pancakes a bit more, rather than concentrated in the middle of each. Neither of us liked their coffee at all, but, you know, it wasn’t poisonous.

The bill brought almost immediately after we were finished, but we were told to “take as long as we wanted” and brought more coffee. Overall, Dearborn served good food, but the standout for us was the extremely efficient service - our drinks, food, and refills all came in a crazy-timely fashion.

SCORECARD

Atmosphere	Price	Variety	Taste	Flexibility	Service
4	3.5	4	3.5	4	5
Cleanliness	Special		Flavour		Courtesy
4	$4.95 weekday/ $5.95 weekend		3.5		5
Ambience	Coffee		Cook		Speed
4	$1.95		4		5
	Pancakes		Coffee
	$5.95		2.5
	Omelette		Potatoes
	$8.50 (several items)		3.5

TOTAL SCORE: 4