Sandy Hook Family Diner

Posted By Michael Stern on May 11, 2008 5:40 PM

If you like breakfast, you need to know about The Sandy Hook Diner. It's an inconspicuous eatery just a minute's drive off I-84 (exit 10), where breakfast and lunch are served seven days a week. While the lunch menu is fine -- a full repertoire of burgers, dogs, club sandwiches, and fried seafood, with good milk shakes on the side -- it is that morning meal that keeps me coming back.

Every day a chalkboard lists a slew of kitchen specials, such items as maple French toast served with Vermont syrup, country ham steak, sausage gravy with biscuits, pumpkin pancakes with spice syrup, eggs ranchero (with salsa), cranberry French toast and omelets of all kinds. My personal favorite is whole wheat banana nut pancakes, which are tender and delicious, dotted with nuts and lovely lodes of warm banana.

The regular menu is a breakfast-lover's delight, including French toast available thin or thick and with or without raisins in the bread, short stacks and full stacks of pancakes with or without fruit toppings, and fillings for omelets that range from raw or fried onions to artichokes and three kinds of cheese. With eggs, you get your choice of either home fries (chunky) or 50-cent-extra hash browns (lacy), and you can also pay a little extra to have ordinary toast replaced by cinnamon toast, raisin toast, or a muffin.

Every day features one flavored coffee in addition to the regular brew; iced coffee and hot chocolate are also available.

A cozy, friendly eatery, Sandy Hook has a small dining room as well as a counter that is a great place to sit and kibbitz. The regular waitress has a full thesaurus of synonyms for 'hon' that she freely uses to address friends and newcomers. Last visit, I was honeybunch, dear, and darling all before my second cup of coffee was poured. On weekends, there is often a small cluster of people waiting on the front stoop for a table to open up.

Sadie Hawkins Omelet

hash browns

Pumpkin Pancakes

Bulls Eye