Sam’s Diner

It’s about as close to a Michigan Coney Island as I’ve seen in this area. The strip mall diner had loud signs proclaiming Buy 1 Dinner get 50% off the 2^nd… and touting other specials. Inside, there is a mixture of booths (some elevated) and tables. It has a clean, retro feel, and we were nodded to take a seat wherever. After getting our drinks, the server gave us time to review the specials board and menu. My friends ordered omelettes (Greek and western — $ 7.95 each) and I got a breakfast sandwich with bacon ($ 4.50). The gyro meat was the star of my friend’s breakfast, and that alone is worth going back for lunch some time. Mine was pretty standard but delicious. The bacon was crispy and egg was cheesy. served on rye bread. Basically, this spot offers tasty breakfast for a good price. There is nothing gourmet and options are pretty standard, but it is worth a stop.

Average food but fairly cheap prices. Place needs to be spruced up as it doesn’t look very clean. Owner did not seem very cordial.

Corned beef hash is homemade with onions and green peppers, very good. My friend had the Greek omlet and said it was excellent.

Dropped in for a quick lunch. Had the Rueben (Homemade) with home fries. It was delicious though it was Corned Beef not the Pastrami I prefer. The portions were huge and I had to force myself to stop eating.

The breakfast special is a great bargain for some really good food! I have had lunch here a few times as well. The portions are plentiful and the food is delicious. Highly recommend.

Everything I have had here has been middle of the road at best. Their biscuits and gravy was barely above serviceable, but I have had worse. The meat loaf was, for lack of a better term… foamy… and I have no idea how you do that to meat loaf. Portions are large for the price. Much of their food tastes like it comes straight from a box (mashed potatoes), box (pie) or a can (gravy). Lack luster all the way around.
I am coming back for the broasted chicken. Those are hard to find and it takes a lot to turn a broasted chicken bad. The servers were nice though.

This is just a few doors down from Scrambler Marie’s, which we have found to be acceptable but uninspired. The competition is clear, but Marie’s doesn’t set the bar very high… Sam’s fails anyway. It’s the kind of experience that makes us, sadly, feel a bit skeptical toward our fellow Unilocalers.
We’re frequent brunchers, so not long after moving to the area we went one Saturday morning to check out this local diner. The service was average. We saw none of the lightning-​quick, attentive, super-​servers that occasionally make their homes in local diners, but there was also no sign of their all-​too-​common evil twins (the glacial, distant, are-​you-​even-​on-​shift servers). The décor is junk, sure, but who cares? We’re not here to make friends an we can ignore the ductwork and wall crud. The noise level was reasonable and the TV (sigh) was not too obtrusive.
We were going heavy for breakfast food, and what we ended up with turned out to range from average to quite terrible. The omelet was serviceable. Ham, cheese, egg, combined in a reasonable manner: good enough. It wasn’t very memorable, but memorability is not always a good sign. The biscuits and gravy, for example, stand out in my mind for their ghastliness. An entire soup bowl of gravy was served, packed with so much cornstarch that it oozed. The biscuits were toasted to rock hardness on one side and stale straight through. Little bits of nasty-​tasting sausage were suspended in the gravy. I’ll have to avoid using a metaphor here to save you a disturbing mental image.
We see now that several of the good reviews are aimed at sandwiches, soups, and salads. We highly recommend that you steer clear of breakfast if you’re going to head in. Perhaps they should pare down their menu to the good bits. But we’re just going to play it safe and avoid this place entirely. Having visited half a dozen places in the area for brunch, Sam’s was easily the worst.

If you want a big bang for your buck… This is the place to be! I found Sam’s Diner to be very good, serving huge portions, at a VERY reasonable price. I’m also on Atkins, and was able to customize my meal very easily. I’m a big fan of the double cheeseburger, no bun, with broccoli (it’s salted pretty well with butter), and cottage cheese. I believe this cost me about 6 bucks, maybe? The service was pretty good too, lots of sassy waitresses in their 40s that really just want to get you in and get you out, but they will also make sure that you don’t leave hungry or thirsty, which I am a big fan of. I will definitely be coming back here, next time I head out of the Hills.

Great diner, but remember, it’s a diner. Don’t expect the highest quality ingredients, but for a diner, they’re top notch. The price can’t be beat. Their salads, homemade soups and sandwiches are great. Breakfast deals are unbeatable.
Yummy Greek diner.

Ohio people are funny. We were sitting there and a couple of middle-​aged guys were sitting by themselves mindlessly stuffing food in their face and staring up at the wall behind me. When I turned to look to see for myself what all the fuss was about I realized that they were all watching Hannah Montana on the TV on the wall. A couple of the guys looked a bit ‘country’ so maybe they were watching it to catch a glimpse of Billy Ray Cyrus… but I don’t know…
The Moussaka and Baby Greek were good too.

Really good greek food and burgers, really nice staff. Highly recommend.

I travel from Atlanta to Toledo every other week for work and make it a point to dine here at least once or twice every trip. I am here in Maumee now during the week of February 1^st 2011 and the great blizzard came in last night. Thinking that most of the local restaurants would be closed, I stopped at Sam’s to get a couple of meals to go and arrived just before 6:00pm to find that they were trying to close up and get home. I couldn’t blame them at all for wanting to get out, so I told the nice server that I would just come back another day. Instead of just sending me out the door like a lot of restaurants would do, one of the owners insisted that I get whatever I wanted anyway.
To me, this is dedication to their customers, because they didn’t have to serve me and they did anyway. I took my gyro and salad back to the hotel and made sure to take care of the server who packed up my dinner for me. The food is always awesome and you get more than you can finish.
You guys are the best and I really appreciate you!!! I am on this project through most of 2011 and will miss you when I am off the account!

I like that place for Breakfast. Best deal that I could find in maumee area.
$ 3.50 for potatoes, eggs and side of meat and toast. The portion is so big that I can hardly finish it and ingredients are top notch.

Sam’s is a classic American/​Greek diner with consistently excellent service and decent food. They have daily specials for $ 6.99 which come with 2 sides – a good deal if you ask me.
I would have given it a higher rating, but honestly, the food ranges from 2 stars to 4 stars, and you just have to figure out which are the great items and which items to avoid. For instance, the open-​faced hot roast beef sandwich is just awful. I had one the other day (because I was giving it another shot after a bad experience 8 months ago), and it destroyed a 5-​day streak of awesome lunches. It was so bad it tasted something like what I imagine «angry» tastes like, if «angry» did indeed have a taste. If you are in Maumee and want a decent open face roast beef, I’d suggest heading over to Tony Packo’s in The Andersons instead.
Having said that, Sam’s gets a lot of food right too. They make great salads, some really fantastic soups, and the 12-​ounce burgers are as good as burgers get. Also good are the grilled chicken sandwiches and most of the sides. The macaroni and cheese used to be epic, but I think they changed recipes 1 or 2 years ago, and now it is just okay.
I feel good about recommending Sam’s, with the caveat that if you don’t like your food, give them a second chance… and be sure to order something different. My experience says there’s a 75% probability that it will be good.

I worked here in high school (cough, glory days, cough cough) and it receives the highest honor, 5 stars, from me… that’s telling you something.
Don’t expect any frills (or alcohol… I waitressed here in HIGH SCHOOL people) but DO expect tasty breakfast, greek salads, and diner cuisine for dirt cheap.
Seriously, the breakfast special was 2.99…and I hated it.