I've never been to such a horrible diner in my life. Along I-95, a stereotypical Mexican by the name of Pedro beckons you to stop at the Carolina border and visit one of his many roadside attractions. Katey and I were in the neighborhood to buy a Fez at 'Hats around the World' so we figured we could grab a bite while here. I spotted a diner; a rarity in the south. Since Katey is from a northern state, she had been missing these sorts of eateries, so we decided to give it a go. And from beginning to end, it was one of the worst places to eat.
We enter the diner and a lady hands us a menu. We sit, review the menu, and are immediately not happy with the meager choices we are given. However, at this point, we were just hungry and needed food. So we waited, and waited... And waited. And still, no order taken.
Finally, the waitress comes over to our table. She takes our drinks order, which consisted of 2 coffees, a water, and a coke.in a normal diner setting, these drinks would be brought to your table - as Pedro would say, Pronto. However, the waitress went back to bull$hitting with her friends. Very loud laughter filled the diner with whatever fun they were having, while the parched customers sat waiting for their drink orders.
She finally brings back 2 very sorry looking coffees, the absolute bottom of the pot from coffee made hours and hours ago. The coffee could not possibly be masked with the additives of sugar and creamers... If she had even remembered to bring these over. So I asked her for some creamers as she took our order. I ordered something very simple: A cheeseburger with no tomato or mustard. Katey order something even easier: A plate of chicken fingers.
If the diner was busy, I would often not be concerned with these sad looking coffees and the lack of creamers, but 95% of it was empty. Coffee creamers take all of 1 minute to bring over to a table. We were 15 more minutes into the wait, as she continued to laugh it up with her friends.
Favorite Dish: Absolutely nothing. And here's why: When food was finally brought over to our coffee creamer-less table, I was handed a sad looking tomato, with a burger under it. The burger was drenched in mustard; in other words, a complete disregard to the special order I had made in this nearly empty restaurant. Katey was handed the wrong meal all-together: Some weird looking grilled cheese mess w/chips... The chips at the bottom of the bag. This tomato was 'seeds allover' and would have brought my allergic reaction to a deathly state. I promptly let the waitress know her mistake, notified her that this was not our food, and demanded the coffee creamers that I had asked for 20 minutes ago.
She had mistaken the order from a diner that was 95% empty! What about my order? Not even STARTED! Katey's chicken fingers arrived... No sauce. Oh, and still no coffee creamers. For a 3rd time, I said 'Can we PLEASE get some coffee creamers!?" She reaches into her apron to pull some out. She had some on her person the whole time!
I had to wait 10 extra minutes AFTER Katey got her food before I got mine. The tomato was gone, but the mustard was still present. Fumed, I just decided to take the wrongly-made-for-the-second-time burger and just consume it. But I couldn't. This was the 2nd worst ever! (1st goes to Vienna) This thing was so drenched in grease, it was covering my plate. Fries came 5 minutes later; freezer-burnt and obviously not a single ounce of care put into the preparation.
That was it. We had both had enough. The waitress was only tipped a couple of dollars, MUCH lower than we have EVER tipped.
On the way home, I felt ill to my stomach, and was sure I would be sick. Luckily it passed, but my feelings for Pedro's Diner never will. And, for the first time in my life, I will actually write a letter to the owner of Pedro's Diner, and give a link to this tip. I plan to publish our finding to the BBB in South Carolina, and write a few letters to the newspapers in the area unless we get a formal apology.
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