Q Street Diner

"This diner is a hidden gem! Well, to us 'out of towners,' it was a nice surprise. We almost headed into downtown Portland, but came upon this treat instead. The food is delicious, with generous portions, and the service is fast and friendly. The nostalgic decor, complete with vintage signs and retro touches, transports you back in time. This is definitely a great spot to grab breakfast. I highly recommend it!"

Michelle Shoulders

"Friendly staff, fast service, good food. First time having breakfast here. Overall it was a good experience and the food was above average for a diner. They also have mimosas and bloody's. Wouldn't hesitate to go here again."

John Crawford

"This place was really, really bad. Don't blindly follow these 5 star reviews, this is one of the worst places I've ever been.

Apart from being a vintage diner traveler, I also run a kitchen in Boston that feeds 500 people in 4 hour services, so there is nothing they could respond to me with that would change my outlook on their restaurant or system.

The exterior is nostalgic enough but the deep interior is actually really goofy and has a strange color scheme separate from the initial dining area that looks like it couldn't even be any older than the 70s or late 60s....most of the decor seemed forced and designed to mimic a true diner, as it's just a rectangle shaped building that was never a box car.

There was a massive line waiting to seat which is not abnormal on weekends for iconic diners around 11am but in my opinion the line was formed by inefficiency of the BOH and FOH and a incredibly ill-advised "seat yourself" sign that should never be allowed to exist in a restaurant that has two separate dining areas and gets backed up enough to even form a line out the door to begin with. On top of that the sign would be much better off saying "cash only" as there is no other indication of that until we got our bill, in which case you're directed to an ATM in the back that charges a fee. People were in absolute chaos looking past people at the front of the line to spot a table that sat their number so they could grab it before other customers who were already waiting for bussers to clear the next table.

Waitress took almost 13min just to ask us for a drink order, and she kept coming by to say "I'll be right with you guys," and literally used that line 3 times to the point me and my wife were like, please don't say that again unless you're actually coming back.

An hour....HOUR....later we finally received this pathetic excuse for a half tuna sandwich, a grilled cheese, and two tomato soups. This especially made no sense because the kitchen had pushed out a 4top order before a 6top that had sat down before them, so how ridiculously bad do you have to be at your job to take 60+min to ladle two soups that should already be prepared and hot before service, put cold tuna salad that should already be prepared before service on a piece of bread that comes out of a bag, put two pickles that come out of buckets on plates, pour a handful of potato chips that come out of bags on plates, and toast a grilled cheese on both sides on a flat-top?

This was so hilariously bad that I'll forever remember it as the worst diner I've ever been to in the 50+ vintage diners I've hit in New England. It is 100x more likely that this place is "popular" because of people seeing a crowd that was formed by a disaster of a kitchen and dining crew, which then overwhelms their inabilities, which then perpetuates into a cycle of mediocrity rather than "good food" because this was absolute trash."

Ryan M.