Being the middle of summer with plenty of tourists in the area, it was no surprise that the restaurant was extremely busy. As we checked in with the hostess, we found out that it was going to be a bit of a wait. It has a classic 50's feel and with oldies but goodies playing in the background you may think about getting up and dancing which would have horrified my wife if I did so I contained my happy feet.
Upon being seated, we were greeted by our waitress, and we settled in for what we hoped would be a great dinner. Interesting, when our waitress came back she dropped the hat below on the table:
I asked the waitress the reason for the hat and she explained that it signals to the manager that the table has been greeted by the wait person and the drinks had been ordered. The hat also has the name of your waitress written on the side of the paper in case you need to ask for something and forget your servers name you won't have to yell out "hey you". This is a good idea and one that other restaurants may want to follow to help eliminate service problems especially at the beginning of the meal. First impressions are critical and this helps to ensure an appropriate start.
We looked over their extensive menu that is chalk full of comfort foods including roast turkey dinner, mac & cheese, chicken pot pie, sandwiches, fried seafood, super melts, burgers and American chop suey. They also have some blue plate specials and sadly they were out of the roast beef on the night we were there. As we watched the orders flying out there were a number of customers that were ordering breakfast which is served all day.
My choice was the Shepherd's Pie:
With tender ground beef, corn and real mashed potatoes you should try this for your main course.
My wife selected their meatloaf. While the meal doesn’t look appetizing at all from this picture, she said that it was good.
The mashed potatoes were a little cool and our server quickly took care of the problem and came back with a new hotter serving. The manager also checked on us after to make sure that everything was okay.
They also have a nice selection of desserts and we chose the Toll House Pie:
Think of a warm chocolate chip cookie baked into a pie crust served with ice cream and hot fudge. My wife loves desserts and she absolutely approved of this selection.
Our server did a great job and so did the manager.
So there you have it, the Tilt'n Diner is a great value for their low priced comfort foods served in a fun environment. If you have to decide between the Common Man in Concord and the Tilt'n Diner we suggest you drive the extra 20 minutes cause dinner is finer at the Tilt'n Diner.
