Skylight Restaurant

I love this place! I almost always order the breakfast special with Ukrainian sausage. Best sausage I’ve ever had. It’s not the cheap sausage rolls you buy at the supermarket. The hash browns are amazing too. They’re pan friend nice and crispy with green onion in them. You can’t beat the price either! The only off putting thing about this place is how it looks. Everything looks the same as it probably did when they first opened. 70’s wood walls and old cheesy art work. We aren’t going there to analyze the décor, but it certainly helps the atmosphere of the place you’re eating at when everything looks fresh and new. That’s the only reason I didn’t give this place 5 stars. Enjoy!

We’ve lived off Commercial drive for a couple years and walk past this place regularly, but have never thought to eat here, mostly because it looks old and tired. We were on our way to Café du soleil for brunch, but stopped to look at this restaurant. A passer by told us they have the best hash browns and recommended it. So we tried it.
It was like stepping back to 1975, carpet and all. It was basic diner food, better than Denny’s. Hashbrowns were excellent, everything else was fine. Interesting Ukrainian omelette. I’d still recommend it. We didn’t try any of the Chinese food, so can’t speak to that. Just brunch.

I will never go back to this place ever again. It’s disgusting. The first time I went there I ordered the teriyaki chicken. I should have known that it would be bad since this place claims it serves Canadian and Chinese and teriyaki is Japanese. Anyways, it came out as some sort of mystery meat that made me feel like I was eating pet food. The sauce was like corn syrup and tasted nothing like teriyaki. The rice was old, reheated, and undercooked. Another time, a friend wanted to go there for brunch since it’s nearby and cheap so I decided to give it another shot. The coffee tasted strange and was cold. The hot sauce was very watered down and the ketchup seemed a little watered down too. The potatoes were super greasy, cold, had gone bad, and were a a little burnt on the outside and raw and mealy in the middle. I had the bacon and my friend had the Ukranian sausage and both were so burnt they were black. My bacon was also cold and my friend said the sausage had a rubbery sort of texture to it. My scrambled eggs had hair in it. Not just one little hair. There were tons of short hairs in it. I complained and the waitress rolled her eyes and walked away. She came back about fifteen minutes later and practically threw down a plate with new eggs for me and walked away again. How rude. She didn’t apologize or offer any deduction. I normally eat all my food but both times the food was so inedible I left the majority of it still on the plate. I also felt a little sick after eating and when I went into the restroom to throw up, I realized the toilet didn’t work properly. The place is really dirty, the service is horrible, and the food is inedible. With all the great places to eat on the Drive, it’s easy to find a good deal and good food elsewhere. Save your money and your stomach for somewhere decent and avoid this place.

Small, quiet, and cash only. Saw a couple of bugs (wall, bathroom floor) and could have been a bit cleaner, but the prices were excellent, and the omelet with green onions and ham was delicious (add cheddar and tomato to it!). Homefries were great as well.

I live around the corner from skylight and love to go there for weekend brunch or dinner to go. The family that runs it is really nice and have been known to wait until after closing for me to pick up my food. The food is exactly what you would expect from a greasy spoon, no surprises here.

My partner would go to the ends of the earth — or at least wake up before 9am on a Sunday for a great truckers breakfast. The only real trucker’s breakfast is from the now ploughed-​under Lynnwood in North Van. It is your basic eggs, meat toast and hashbrowns only with all three breakfast meats — ham, sausage and bacon. Our search for an equivalent brought us to the Skylight this morning with the 2 kids in tow. He got his self made trucker’s breakfast, I got regular bacon and eggs and the kids had pancakes and scrambled eggs. All I can say is I have never left food on my plate before and I left pretty much everything behind. HOW CAN YOU SCREW UP BACON??? My eggs were cold, the kids scrambled eggs were clumped into a omelette and had some kind of metal shavings in them. My partner left half his sausage behind. Even the coffee was somehow tasteless and never refilled. This was a huge disapointment especially since it’s so close to home. I would skip this place and stand in line at Bön”s anyday.
In a word — TERRIBLE. and Cash only. NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN.

If you are *really* hungry and every other restaurant on commercial is closed, venture here.
Smiles food ambiance

I love this place. My mother and I have been coming here for years and we have never been disappointed. The family who run the business work tirelessly and I can’t help but admire all of their efforts. Their coffee is consistently good, their egg foo young dishes are very well made, their burgers are awesome, even their soup is above average. Yes, it can be a bit greasy. But who cares when it leaves you satisfied in every way that I feel a restaurant should.

I have spent many a breakfast-​time here, and a few dinners too. I love going there by myself. The breakfasts are decnet — greasy but cheap enough and they don’t mind if you hang around and read, do homework, etc. The salt content of the hashbrowns started to get to me, though– it always tastes the same. I can’t go there as much.
Still, it’s a neighborhood favorite: a cheap, cozy spot to get your grease on.

The Skylight has to be my favourite greasy spoon. Beats Bons any day.
The restaurant is always pretty full, but I’ve never had to wait for a table. The service is always quick and friendly. I’ve had the chicken friend rice (ohemgee, the portions!) and a few of the different breakfast specials. All tasty and all will cure your hangover. Price is great, for two people you can get a big breakfast and coffee for under $ 20.
And I love the dishes! So kitch!

This is one of my all time favorite places to get breakfast, in Vancouver or anywhere. I’ve been eating here since 2001 when I first moved to Vancouver and lived in the neighborhood. Super cheap and good greasy. Same staff have been working there forever and they are very friendly. I haven’t lived near commercial drive for a long time, but I keep going back every now and then and the server lady always remembers my usual order. I’ve have various things on the menu over the years, but my usual is the basic breakfast with Ukranian sausage. They have my favorite «diner coffee» too. Not sure what brand of coffee it is, but you know that cheap, crappy coffee that a diner will have that every once in a while just works so well with what you’re eating? That exists here. A friend of mine swears they have the best clubhouse sandwich and he’s a connoisseur of the clubhouse. The chinese food is apparently really good too, but honestly I’ve always only had breakfast. The Commercial drive neighborhood is a shit-​hole these days, but even the hippies, sketchy vagrants, inconsiderate assholes jay-​walking right in the middle of traffic and endless parade of smugness won’t deter me from getting one of the best breakfasts ever.

As a self-​proclaimed brunch glutton, I often choose places with fancy bennies and strong drinks, places I would also go for supper. But when money is tight or the hangover is too fierce, I head to Skylight.
I grew up on the Drive mere blocks away, and have been going here since I was a teen. Though I only go in a few times a year now, the lovely waitress remembers EXACTLY what I want (down to how I like my eggs and toast), and that I like hotsauce, and that I use milk rather than cream. It’s eerie.
Simple, plain greasy spoon fare abounds, and the eggs are cooked perfectly to order and the hashbrowns are greasy, green onion-​y and wonderful.
Brekkie is so cheap that I always leave a hefty tip and stroll out with a smile on my face. Not fancy, but clean and cheap and tasty!

I’ve spent many many many times having cheap all day breakfast here. I keep returning almost weekly because the food is yummy and dirt cheap! The only thing I don’t like about the place is some of the weird customers that can be really rude to the lovely server. I don’t think the poor lady has had a day off in like 5 years. I crave the eggs benny and will venture across the city after moving out of the neighbourhood to have breakie on the drive. This place really in a little gem.

Good old skylight. The last of the once-​popular roadside diners, Skylight offers cheap breakfast with all the expected combinations. Greasy and unpretentious, many consider it a good clean hangover cure, if eggs and bacon do it for you and you hate washing the fat from the pan afterwards.
It’s small and underrated, but quaint and quiet. Couple of chairs and tables outside, and of course booths and somewhat sticky countertops inside. The key word again is cheap, with bottomless coffee that will require both cream and sugar.
Like most decrepit under-​decorated diners, it also offers good deals on Chinese food lunch specials as well. A good place to go if you don’t feel like running into someone you know.