Bananas A Modern American Diner

The service is always on point, but the food just never tastes good.
I still go every once in a while when a friend hasn’t been yet (gotta try this place at least once), but I’m always disappointed with food. Usually I just get something less complicated so there’s less room for error, like waffles.

Eat here if you love oil more than you love food. Or eat here if you are a robot (need oil to lubricate joints).
Now the reason I say this is because I ordered a sandwich from Bananas, as did my friend. To our surprise, we both received oil with a sandwich on the side. Now I have used a few hyperboles, but there was so much oil on our food that it LITERALLY (I’m using this word correctly) was dripping out of the take away box.
I am an eating machine — I never leave a plate empty or a meal unfinished. If there is food I don’t like, I use this invention called hot sauce to finish it. But this night, with «food» from Bananas, I met my match. I actually couldn’t finish the meal. Onlookers who knew me (or of my eating triumphs) were shocked. Many were appalled.
I felt sick. The oil did some serious damage. Fortunately, there are some great restaurants in the orlando area that do not make money through cooking oil sponsorships. Go to them instead.
I rarely boycott restaurants. After that meal, I have boycotted Bananas.
N.B. I still eat and love the fruit. They can’t take that away from me.

I stumbled into here one night at 2 AM after a night of clubbing downtown, I had ordered the buffalo chicken sandwich and meatloaf.
I LOVED my sandwich but the meatloaf was very bland, and there was an overwhelming amount of green beans on the plate.
Bathrooms were clean, overall a nice experience. I’ll give this place another try when I’m sober haha.

This place is Bananas– B-​A-​N-​A-​N-​A-​S!
I apologize. That was unforgivably corny…
Moving on– this is one my favorite late night eats. They have tater tots, breakfast anytime, and fabulous servers (I wish I could be walking comfortably in heels like those at midnight!).
My favorite burger in town right now is their Funky Monkey burger (comes with goat cheese and an insane tomato chutney!), though the veggie burger is one if the best in orlando (none of this frozen boca burger junk!).
Sunday brunch is truly something to behold! Words can’t do it justice, but let’s just say that there’s no stage– the ladies sing and dance all around the booths! I have so much fun that my stomach feels like I’ve done 1000 sit-​ups the next day (though by the looks of it I could’ve done without that last order of tots…).

While I agree with the others on the food just being so-​so, the show more than makes up for it. I don’t think the food was terrible in any way, but it is a little bland. But again, who goes to a drag show for the food?
I ordered the big breakfast platter with bacon, hashbrowns, eggs, and pancakes. It took a bit for our food to come out but with so many fabulous queens entertaining us and lots of mimosas, it didn’t really matter! Our server was quick to fill our drinks and check up on us after we did receive our meals.
My pancakes were a little odd (they had a weird texture & flavor) but edible and my hashbrowns were pretty decent. It’s hard to mess up eggs so those were fine, as was my bacon. I’m not sure I’d order that same meal as my friend who got the burrito raved about it.
Bananas is a super fun place to go if you are in the mood to laugh and enjoy a meal with friends.

I wasn’t too crazy about the steak and eggs I ordered. I had it cooked medium, but it didn’t taste very fresh to me. It also wasn’t seasoned very well, and the usual steak sauce didn’t really help. I had the eggs poached medium, but I didn’t have any bread to soak it up, so it just made a mess on my plate.
The service was good though and the server had a nice «attitude». It was a Sunday, right before their Gospel brunch, and the place was pretty much empty when we got there, but was picking up. I wasn’t in the mood to see the Gospel part and is why I was their earlier.
I’m hoping I just ordered the wrong thing. I want to try again with something else.

Cue in Motley Crüe Girls! Girls! Gurls!
Let’s be honest, I don’t really come here for the food. I come here for the girls, girls, girls!
I especially love the Gospel brunch, it is preferable to make reservation. I
simply love being able to scream and shout in the middle of my meal and it be perfectly acceptable.
In addition, so much wisdom can be gained here.
” if men can look this good, there’s no excuse for ugly women.“
This is the knowledge I walked out with after visiting bananas.
Make sure to bring cash for tipping during the show. As I also learned here, «looking this cheap ain’t cheap.»
Gotta love it!

My second time at the Gospel Brunch. Fixed price now and not worth the price. Pancakes weren’t edible — looked undercooked. Don’t think there’s a way to make quality food when you’re serving an entire restaurant at the same time. (Go with the burgers)
Show even seemed shorter. The ladies are entertaining and gorgeous (love their makeup) the servers are great. One star for the show and one for the servers. They both work hard.

This was utterly embarrassing. A steep drop in service and food quality from the dinner service I experienced three years ago, the Gospel Brunch was brutal.
Our food was inedible (my girlfriend refused to touch her charred burger and was having difficulty cutting through blueberry pancakes with the silverware given). My overcooked eggs and pancakes suffered the same result, which was clearly a case of the kitchen pre-​cooking to prevent getting slammed during the show. Our drinks had been pre-​made and waiting for someone to order them, which was obvious from the need to stir due to separation and melted ice in our Bloody Marys.
As far as service was concerned, there was none. While I understand servers do in fact perform during the show, there should at least be backup or a floor manager to touch tables and ask how the food came out/​does anyone need refills on drinks/​would you like the check. It wasn’t until a friend flagged down a manager five minutes before the 1:00 show that anyone even knew we existed, let alone we wanted our checks.
The entertainment was fun, which keeps this from being a one-​star review. They obviously know what the crowd wants and they give it with full-​force, so no complaints there.

It’s ok. Not really sure what all the hype was about. But it wasn’t BAD. It was … Ok.
The crowd there is pretty awesome though. You get the milk district crowd along with those that are ready to have a good time before or after downtown adventures.
The plus side is that this place is 24hrs. On the weekend and I am a huge fan of breakfast entrees. If there’s an egg on it, I’m a fan!
The menu has the classic American diner dishes as well as their signatures. I’ll definitely try it again to sway my 3 stars into a 4.

I’ve been to Bananas twice and it’s time for 4 stars because they’ve earned it!
My first visit was breakfast and I was happy to find country gravy that had some meat and flavor to it. May still have been a mix, but at least it wasn’t wallpaper paste! Came on delicious fluffy biscuits, and the accompanying sausage, eggs and potatoes were all fresh and tasty.
Second time around was lunch and oh man, they have seasoned fries! Also tater tots that were nice and crispy, not mushy and reminiscent of school cafeteria lunch. I got their hickory burger, minus the BBQ… sad to see that their «Wisconsin cheddar» was processed cheese slices — I’m from a Wisconsin family, I know my cheese, and I’m expecting a solid cheese slice, not a waxy plastic sliver. That aside, the bacon was well cooked, fresh toppings, and the meat actually had flavor! I’m sick of these thin, flavorless burgers — good to see one that tasted beyond beef and had some thickness so I could specify medium-​rare (more to the medium, but it was still juicy).
My roommate got the goat cheese topped burger which I would’ve eaten that alone (and will next time, it’s an appetizer). Fried to perfection and oozed so well once bitten into on the burger.
Only serious complaint aside from my cheese was that they had cream of chicken soup as that day’s special. I love cream soups, so I ordered a cup. We got our burgers and the waiter (who wasn’t too attentive) said the soup was coming right up. I was half way through my burger before it arrived in what looked like a side bowl for a condiment like gravy. The flavor was bland and it was super thick, it really was almost like chicken gravy… although I’m not entirely certain it was chicken. It had a non-​descript flavor with chunks of potatoes and some kind of meat that had more of the texture of clams than chicken. In fact, had you not told me it was cream of chicken, I would’ve guessed bland clam chowder.
Speaking of the waiter, he was… well, for lack of better word, lame. Nice enough, but almost a fake nice. We never had refills on our drinks and when I mentioned my disappointment in the soup I could tell it was in one ear and out the other.
It sounds like the bulk of my review is negative, but really I do like this place and will continue going. There’s a lot on the menu I still want to try and I know where to go for my biscuits and gravy fix without driving across town.

It’s been a year since the last time we visited, and this time we stopped by with a party of three on a Saturday morning, around 10:30 AM.
To our surprise, the place was fairly dead. We were seated quickly and charmed by a waiter with a fun personality, who took our order and brought our coffees.
And then it all went wrong.
The place started to get quite busy and it turns out there was just this one waiter (who had only been there 2 weeks) and a very unhappy looking hostess to take care of the whole restaurant. I am assuming they were not doing the cooking as well, but with as slow as muddled as everything became, I would not be surprised.
My sister ordered the kielbasa and sausage with scrambled eggs and an english muffin, I ordered a breakfast burrito and my companion ordered biscuits and gravy. In the course of waiting for our food — which was a somewhat long and hungry wait — I saw at least two patrons send things back to the kitchen.
Right before our food came out, the hostess stopped by the table to tell my sister that they’d run out of kielbasa and they’d already subbed in sausage, and was that ok? My sister, whose stomach was probably eating itself at that point, just said, sure whatever, just bring it out.
I am here to tell you these were the saddest, most anemic looking sausages I have ever seen. After tasting them, we all decided that not only did they look like albino cat turds, they tasted pretty awful as well, with the consistency of packing sponge. The «scrambled» eggs were an offense I have seen committed by many dining establishment. It’s almost like they pour the eggs in the pan, push it around half– heartedly and call it done when they’re assumed to be cooked through. You need to sort of whip them or whisk them about first, and then do whatever it is you have to do in the pan to make them look «scrambled». Not like a block of egg product, the kind you get in prisons and IKEA. You know what I mean, right? Scrambled? Scrambled.
Also, they forgot her english muffin.
The breakfast burrito was serviceable, although I don’t think there were any olives in it, as the menu mentioned. Don’t you hate that? When the menu gives a lengthy description of dish with all kinds of tasty components but then the finished product is missing most of the stuff that made it sound so amazing? My companions biscuits and gravy were, as he stated, «ok».
Maybe it was an off morning. They did seem really, really short-​staffed. But I have found on every occasion that the food… is just not very good. There’s no way around it. And there’s really no compelling reason to come back and give it another go.

Well, at first I couldn’t decide whether to give two stars or three, but I settled on three because the food I had was okay. I’m not sure why we hadn’t been here already, obviously it’s a popular spot on Mills, but we had never gotten around to it until a friend invited us for lunch on a Saturday.
We were seated at a table that was a little bit slimy and had the pungent mildewy smell of old dishwater, which was just as off-​putting as the sticky laminated menus. The other two in our party ordered Bloody Marys, which they said were pretty good even though they were missing any sort of skewers, toppings, etc that you normally expect from a Bloody Mary. I’m not a fan of the drink, so I asked if they had mimosas.
«Sorry, we don’t have any orange juice.»
Okay, no problem. Just to have something in front of me, I got a beer from their seriously poor selection. When the time came for another drink, I had thought about it a little more and asked for a rum and coke.
«We don’t have any rum.» Hmm. Okay, how do you make the frozen rum drinks on your menu if you don’t stock any rum? Do they come out of a pre-​mixed package or something? I just ordered another beer.
I got the buffalo chicken sandwich for lunch, which wasn’t bad. It wasn’t special by any stretch, but I was happy enough with it. I have to admit I’m struggling to see the allure here. Maybe a Sunday brunch would be a better experience? That seems to be the case based on the reviews I’m seeing.
Do they have rum on Sundays?

I am so sad to say that I didn’t have the top-​notch experience at Bananas that I expected. Bananas has many awesome ingredients that should predict a good time: great food and drag queens being two of them.
We arrived on a Sunday morning before the gospel brunch crowd arrived. While looking at the menu, I overheard a server tell a nearby table that they were out of bacon. Out of bacon. On a Sunday morning at 9am. Seriously? Send someone who works there out for some damn bacon.
We ordered our meals and waited over thirty minutes to receive our food. At no point did the servers come tell us the food was coming, or apologize for the delay. Actually, the servers were pretty busy chatting with one another, as if they were there to socialize and not work.
When we finally received our food, it was great. But the service took so long and was so horrendous that we will never come back.

***March 2013 UPDATE***
Shortly after I wrote my negative yet honest review, I received a private message from the owner, Eddie. He said I was completely wrong, and proceeded to attack me.
Stay classy FMI Restaurant Group. I strongly recommend all my friends and fellow Unilocalers to stay away from Bananas, Funky Monkey, Nick’s Italian Kitchen, and Prickly Pear.
*****************************
The staff is certainly entertaining… drag queens and cross dressers always provide a good show (and good service). But at the end of the day, this is a restaurant, and the food just doesn’t pan out.
The menu is standard diner fare, filled with comfort foods like burgers, melts, and their supposed specialty: chicken & waffles. And all of it is beyond sub-​par. The burgers are a sloppy mess, with an overcooked, flavorless patty. And you can have much better chicken & waffles at legitimate soul food restaurants in town (Chef Eddies, Nikki’s Place), or even a food truck (Melissa’s Chicken & Waffles).
The décor attempts to go with a classic/​retro vibe, but fails miserably upon closer inspection. Everything is pretty old and worn: the floor is dirty as if it hadn’t been cleaned in ages, and the vinyl booth seats were torn. They really need to do a refresh.
If you’re in the area, and if everything else is closed, you could do worse than eat at Bananas. Then again, IHOP or Denny’s probably taste better, and on some nights the clientele might even provide better entertainment.

We came here after a concert late Friday night. We expected the place to be packed but found parking to be easy and only two or three tables were occupied.
I let them know straight away that I had a groupon on my phone and they examined and approved it after notifying us it’s one per table. The server let us know of a wine special, so I ordered that. My friend ordered some croissant concoction and I ordered a hickory turkey burger. As we were in no rush. We sat around and carried on about the end of the world (it was Dec 21, 2012) and celebrated our survival at the stroke of midnight. Our usual shenagenans were not only tolerated by both the staff and other diners, but they joined in as well. We had a good time.
It took us forever to get our food even though Banannas was near vacant. My friend wanted to go back to the kitchen and maker her own damn croissant. I don’t know how long it took. It was an absurd amount of time. At the end, our food was blah. My friend complained her croissant was soggy and she SHOULD have gone back there and made it herself. I swear my turkey burger was not turkey. It tasted more like the fake BBQ ribs they used to distribute in my high school cafeteria. Everyone else was disappointed with their food as well.
We were shocked when we all got our checks. Our pour of house wine on «special» was nearly $ 8. Additionally, the staff was suddenly baffled how to use the groupon on my phone. It took forever to check out and I think even with the groupon I paid too much.
I like the atmosphere and the fact that they are open 24 hours a day, but I’m not going back here.

Threw shyness aside and went for a Tuesday show with a group of friends. It really was a lot of fun.
Coming from a smaller town and having been to drag shows there… put me in a very timid state of ever wanting to go to a drag show again. It was a vicious experience! So when going to a show here after not having been in what…15 years… naturally I thought grabbing some uncooked steaks and jumping into a shark tank might have been a less stressful situation. But I digress.
The service really could not have been better. As a side note, if you are a server (Genesis, if you’re curious, was great) and you can manage to take drink orders, go do a grueling dance number, come back smile and ask if we need refills, then do it all over again, you definitely deserve applause. Had the sweet potato tots, and the grilled cheese with tomato soup (was looking for some comfort food, call me sheltered).
I know the reviews are somewhat mixed, but at this point as far as diner food goes, Bananas is at the top of my list. And as far as drag shows go, these girls may have dragged me back out of my shell to keep coming back for more. Well done indeed. :)

Visit #4 to Bananas: It was 3 AM, and there was a version of the Jersey Shore going down at the table next to me where a drunken Snooki had lost her Bumpit and Pauly D was helping her call around town, drag queens were singing Cee-​Lo Green’s «F*** You» (uncensored version) in the aisle, and Big Breakfasts piled high with bacon, french toast, eggs and hash browns were delivered to my table in rapid fashion.
Bananas, I think I finally «get» you. I’m still mad about the raw chicken and waffles, but you’ve got character. Thanks for being you.

Was IMMENSELY DISAPPOINTED with the service last visit. Had a waiter named «Sexy» and he messed up our order, didn’t give us silverware after asking THREE TIMES to THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE!!! Four out of five of us sat there without utensils, while the fifth person was still waiting on their chili cheese dog. After 40 minutes of waiting on silverware, the waiter never came back until he was ready to leave us with the check. Then suddenly when it was time to sign our checks, he miraculously has all the time in the world to stand there and watch us sign the checks. HORRIBLE SERVICE. A manager never approached us even after we had displayed frustration with THREE different staff members. Sorry to say that this experience ruined what had been great for me in the past.
Bananas, your service is crap and you need to get it together.

Were should I start?! If I said food was good, and service was really slow, I would be saying what a lot of others have already said… so I won’t :)
We came in on Tuesday night for dinner and the «show». I highly recommend reservations. We were there at 6:30, for what we thought would be a 7:30 show, according to their website. It was pretty empty at that time, but as soon as 7:00 hit, there was a line out the door. Luckily we had gotten our order in before the rush. The food came a mere 50 minutes later. Imagine if I ordered at 7:10.
I ordered the garbage plate, well because it just sounded cool. It was really not bad, but really not great either just a lot of different food including macaroni salad on one plate, with two full beef patties. My wife ordered the veggie burger and loved it.
Leslie, our waitress was trying hard, but just got around to refilling my drink in 2 hours. The show was pretty entreating, and kind of funny, but I would recommend Funky
Monkey for the real thing.

This restaurant is so good I don’t even know where to begin! Based on the review of our fabulous Miss. Colleen, I just had to check this place out!
I immediately fell in love with the ambiance and décor the second we stepped inside. Yes, the ceilings are low; however, my husband is 6’5″ and didn’t have to duck at all. With that being said, if he were just a mere ½ inch or so taller, he would have been ducking for sure. But who cares, the place looks amazing!
The server, Jeff, who approached our table immediately, was the best server I’ve had in quite some time. I can’t speak brilliantly enough about him. He was extremely knowledgeable about the entire menu and made recommendations, our glasses were never empty, he knew the perfect times to check to make sure if everything was going ok, he constantly had a smile on his face, and he was an absolute delight to speak with. The owner even came by our table to say, «Hi» and make sure everything was great.
I ordered the turkey club and it was the best I have ever had. The turkey was piled on high and it was huge. I could only eat half of it. I brought the other half home for the next day and was shocked when I took it from the refrigerator for lunch to find the bread was not soggy! What? I’ve never had a leftover sandwich where the bread wasn’t completely soggy. The sandwich was just as good as the night before!
My husband had the Sheppard’s Pie and I swear I thought the man was in Heaven. He said it was the best thing he had eaten in a very long time.
I had mentioned to Jeff my birthday was coming up the next week and I was surprised to see him coming out with a dessert. It wasn’t even my birthday yet! Now that’s customer service, people! I wish, I wish, I wish I could remember the name of the pie — it was peanut butter something with an Oreo crust — OMG was it GOOD!!!
The restaurant has wifi and I’m so bummed we are moving to the other side of town next week because this would for sure be a place I would go in the afternoon to sit for a few hours with my laptop to write my book with a few glasses of wine, great music, great service, and AWESOME atmosphere! BTW, the music is perfect for the restaurant, it’s an XM radio station (can’t remember the name of the station either, darn it) and is played on just the right volume so you can hear it without it getting in the way of conversations.
2^nd visit was about 5 days later. We walked in and the hostess asked if we’d like our usual table. Seriously? :) We had only been there the once — of course I want my usual table! And of course I want Jeff! Our 2^nd visit was just as amazing as our first. We both wanted to order something different, but what we ordered the first time was so wonderful we ended up ordering it again. This time my husband also ordered a cup of the jerk chicken soup which I tried and it was to die for! It had some things in it which I do not eat and Jeff said he’d see what he could get the Chef to do. The Chef actually made a soup specifically for me — he went out of his way to cook a chicken breast for the soup because I only wanted the broth and the chicken. Two thumbs up for customer service there! Wowowowowow!
Yes, we’re moving to the other side of town, but I’ll be back to this area of town as often as I can if for no other reason than to dine here!

I can’t think of another place like this around Orlando. Chic new diner paired with that old school intimate diner feeling, classic comfort food with an upscale touch, yep that’s Bananas!
Located in the MIlls50 district, this new addition is welcomed with open arms. Early-​morning and late-​night hours is a great mix depending on what you are in the mood for. They serve breakfast at all hrs they are open. Thursday, Friday and Saturday they are open 24 hours. Yep, I have a feeling after I party it up DT I am going to hit this place up for meatloaf or french toast… heck some nights, maybe a mix of both.
Last night my girls and I were craving meat… (insert jokes here). So, we headed over to Bananas and it was packed! Only opening this past Monday it was refreshing to see the support of the local community trying out this new addition. There was only a short wait since we wanted a booth. There are also tables and a counter in the middle.
They have a nice wine list and upon request you are able to ask for Funky Monkey’s extensive wine list since they are right next door. I went with the Cupcake Resiling, yes… 2 of the best words on the face of this planet. It was delicious. We started with sweet potato fries and they were a little overcooked but still tasty and yummo!
I went with the dijon encrusted meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggie of the day, which was corn. Now I know everyone is not necessarily a meatloaf fan but it is on my top 5 favorite meals of all time. Next to my personal recipe and my mothers… this one fell a close 3^rd and that is HUGE. It was so tasty and cooked perfectly. The mashed potatoes and corn were a wonderful pairing. Check out the photos… I basically licked the plate.
As for dessert, I was pumped to order a milkshake, however, they will not have ice cream until next week so don’t get your hopes up for a lilttle bit. However, all the more reason to go back ASAP! =) They also had some yummo looking pies on deck but I was a little too full to splurge.
Def recommend checking this place out and I promise to review the breakfast menu soon =)