Arena Diner

Excellent SOUPS Great find on my way to a meeting, I will definitely be back

Big sign out front that the property is for sale/​rent with restaurant fixtures.

Second time here, breakfast is wonderful, coffee was taste amazing, With free refill. Omelet are huge with home fries. Nice and friendly staff, service is better then before. They are building their way back up after a long time. The place has a very nice atmosphere. Will come back with more friends.

In a world where an apathetic shrug was a gold medal this place would easily be a 5 star restaurant unfortunately apathetic shrugs are not worth much is the reviewers world unless they are reviewing a The Smiths dance off and Arena Diner is lacking in everything.
Formerly a small doughnut place Arena Diner has been transformed in a smaller diner that seems to be made for holding something smaller… possibly doughnuts, either way it is cramped and upsetting to be in.
The food is… food. I don’t know what you want but if its a signature dish you will be hard pressed, everything seems to be shipped in on the «Diner food.» delivery truck what would be fine if they didn’t scorch or deep fry it with malice.
The only credit it can get from me involves it’s wait staff. They were doing their darnedest to make my experience salvageable but alas I just wasn’t feeling it.
Verdict is this place is small and bland. I would suggest it to elderly elves and conservative dwarfs.

Nice place! Was on way to Trenton and IHOP in Hamilton was super crowded especially for a Friday. Had my Wife and Daughter with me since it was Teacher’s Convention Friday. Found Arena Diner on Unilocal.
The Diner is nice and clean and has a salad bar. The Arena Diner has nice menu with lunch specials including an entrée and either Salad Bar or Soup. Salad bar has good selection and is very fresh. Soup of the day was New England Clam Chowder which was good. My Daughter and I had hamburgers – her’s was plain with lettuce and I had the Bar-​be-​que burger; it had an Italian flavor having peppers. Would go back if in the area – probably wouldn’t make a special trip.

Better then expected. Higher end diner fare with great service at a great price. Looking forward to coming here again for lunch. You shouldn’t have any reservation about stopping here.

After months and months of watching the renovation progress on what was once Eddie’s Diner on Arena Drive, I was looking forward to trying the new local eatery. Some folks told me the breakfast was really good and others told me the dinner was really bad. Well, the crew and I decided to check it out after an early afternoon at the movies.
The inside appears smaller than the old Eddie’s, they enlarged the kitchen, moved the restrooms and counter, and added a salad bar. The décor was brighter and the old high back booths were replaced with lower backed ones.
The place was closed to full when we arrived, but we were greeted quickly and seated. The menu almost looks exactly like the one at Broad Street diner and there is a LOT of items on it. Two if us were not very hungry and two of us were.
The waitress seemed more than a bit flighty, but she was very nice. I was elated to see snapper soup on the menu for $ 2.00 a cup so I ordered the soup and the salad bar, M ordered the French onion soup and the salad bar. P ordered the junior prime rib medium rare, the matzo soup, mashed potatoes and pickled beets. J ordered the Crab Imperial and cream of turkey soup. No sides were offered with his dinner special.
The salad bar was nicely laid out, clean and everything looked and tasted fresh, there was a nice selection of items and pre-​made salads such as potato and macaroni. The exception was the bread in a steamer table. It was reminiscent of Mastori’s cheese bread and cinnamon bread, but the bread was very stale and hard to swallow.
All of the soups were over-​salted, in fact two hours later I am still guzzling water. Definitely stay away from the snapper soup, it tasted more like salty brown gravy so I will stick with the one at Crystal Diner (best snapper soup in the area in my opinion). I sent it back and had it replaced with the French Onion, which was okay — there was a slight teriayki taste to it and although M’s cheese looked like it had been nicely broiled, mine looked more microwaved. The broth was like drinking an oily salt lick.
The prime rib was obviously done in a pan to order, slightly overdone and had little au jus again it was also oversalted. The mashed potatoes were good and pickled beets were canned. The crab imperial was okay, again not a lot of sauce on the top so it was a bit dry and the red peppers overpowered the subtleness of the crab,
The waitress constantly confused who ordered what and put the plates and beverages in front of the wrong people. P got a dessert with her meal (included in the price). She ordered chocolate ice cream, the waitress brought out bread pudding. When we pointed out the error she left the pudding and brought the ice cream. So of course we all tasted the bread pudding, it was undercooked and not very pleasant. The ice cream was good.
The waitress let us know that she only charged me the $ 2 for the snapper soup as opposed to the $ 3.50 for the replacement French onion because she said she was «too lazy to change the check.»
Our entire check came to $ 51.15 and it was not worth it. Needless to say, none of us will be returning the Arena Diner unless under duress.
One last thing, if you post anything negative on their Facebook page about the food and service, instead of commenting with an apology they delete the comment. I found this pretty amusing.