Minella’s Mainline Diner

Eh. Not my first choice for the area, but if you’re looking for typical diner food you’ll find it here. The atmosphere is relaxed and it’s perfect for families. During our last visit a few weeks ago it was terribly hot and so loud. I couldn’t wait to finish our meal and leave.

i went to minella’s diner for dinner tonight ONLY because my 2 friends like it there. I was there about 2 months ago and my dinner was terrible and everyone else’s dinner at the table looked very unappetizing. My friend wanted to go back tonight because it’s convenient, so I gave it another try (somewhat unwillingly).
This place has mastered the use of «fillers» in their food. This time it was the chicken croquettes (last time it was stuffed crabmeat). When you put a fork in a chicken croquette it should be soft. At minella’s, it’s hard as a rock filled with something other than chicken. They don’t appear to be using fresh food and cheapen everything with these fillers. My mother ordered a shrimp salad that came out with tons of mayonaisse and some shrimp underneath. Just disgusting. There was 3 other people eating dinner at the table and they didn’t even serve rolls.
The last time I was there I ordered their special that was supposed to have crabmeat. Again as mentioned above, I don’t think there was one piece of real crabmeat, just a total mix of fillers that was terrible. This time I said something to the manager who was working the bakery dept. His response «Oh so the shrimp salad had to much mayo and the chicken croquettes were hard». Nothing else. Any professional would have asked if they could do anything to make things right. Somehow, I felt he heard complaints before about their food and just is trained to «do nothing». If you go to minella’s, order something like eggs or something very simple like peanut butter and jelly.
Their bakery is good, but the food chef is dreadful and the fact that they are not using fresh ingredients really bothers me. I’d love for Gordon Ramsey to visit this place and cut into the chicken croquettes on national television. That would truly expose this restaurant for what it is… terrible!

Their food is delicious, but as it is always crowded the woman in the entrance is pretty grumpy…

I was happy to find a (new to me) 24-​hour diner on my way home from work.
The interior is very clean – one of the cleanest diners I’ve been in – and it looks like a great place to gather after hours. The atmosphere was perfect.
But I was a bit disappointed by the food, which is, you know, the main thing. I ordered the Greek salad, which came with a lemon orzo soup, and rice pudding for dessert. The lemon orzo soup was delicious… lovely. But the salad was tasteless and extremely wet… to the point where there was a big puddle of water at the bottom of the bowl. Might’ve been a salad-​spinner mishap… but not worth $ 11. The rice pudding was a bit medicinal tasting… also a disappointment.
I’ll give this place another try, maybe with something breakfast-​y, but my recommended diner is the Aston Diner – food is always good, and their Greek salad is amazing… fresh and tasty.

Standard diner set up, nothing disappointing or exciting. They do have a liquor license which is a bit surprising, so there are a few different bottles of beer, wine, and some cocktails.
The omelets and creamed chipped beef are pretty good, but nothing out of the ordinary.
It seems the diner can get VERY busy during peak hours, but they manage to move people in and out pretty quickly, so I haven’t experienced a wait time too lengthy. Don’t expect to get a seat immediately during brunch/​lunch hours on the weekend, you’ll have to wait a little bit at least.
While not quite the same thing, Avenue Eatz is two minutes down the street and also serves the same types of breakfast/​lunch food and of a significantly higher caliber. This also means its pricier, the restaurant seats only a handful of people, and there will be longer wait times, but that should probably be a first choice over the diner.

We stopped by here the morning after a wedding out in the Radnor area. This place was recommended by the hotel.
The diner was busy for a Saturday morning but I got a bad vibe as soon as I walked in. The host was miserable! I said good morning and just got a look. I knew then I should have just left.
I ordered the main line special which consisted of 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 bacon and 1 sausage. Well the eggs were good after all they are hard to screw up. The pancakes were terrible! They were cold and tasted like rubber. The bacon was overcooked and the sausage was undercooked. The orange juice was very sweet! To the point where I couldn’t drink it. My wife ordered the caprese omelette, she wasn’t a fan. She didn’t care for the texture of the eggs, she said they seemed half cooked. All in all $ 27.00 for a bad breakfast. Everything was rushed and the service was sub par. The waitress was rude as was the cashier. Everyone seemed miserable. 2 stars all day long and that’s a stretch.

They have the best chicken noodle soup! Their breakfast is very good as well … I recommend going before or after the lunch rush!

Great little standard diner. Good hours… almost never closed.
Always seating available no matter when.
Will def be back prob after drinking lol

Came here after a dance event with a party of 8. Our party was split into 2 booths consisting of 4 people. My table all ordered burgers to try out and I ordered the Texas burger deluxe that contained 1 fried egg, 1 hamburger patty, 2 white burger buns, 2 onion rings in the burger, lettuce, tomatoes, fries, Cole slaw and a large spear pickle.
Food quality — late night ²⁴⁄₇ diner food. I ordered medium for my burger patty and my friends ordered medium rare, however all of our food came out prepared well done. The onion rings were too chewy — when you took a bite of the onion ring you were literally pulling out the entire onion.
Burger itself w/​fried egg was average. The fried egg was very dry, almost looked as if it was already pre made hours before and they just slapped it on my burger.
Service — we had a very nice waitress for our party of 8. Bc we arrived early she gave us the option to sit down first and have our party join us at a booth right behind us so we were all together.
Ambiance — typical diner scene with a large sit down coffee bar area, some sweets section and Many booths and small tables. There was also a good amount of high school kids out there at the time.
Although I didn’t particularly enjoy my burger I would come back and try ordering something else. It’s nice for late night dining!

Upgrading to 2 or 3 stars as I finally got to eat a mediocre meal here.
Service was much better — our server Melissa was a doll, but I had a rotten avocado sliced all over the salad I ordered. Blargh! They comped dessert to make up for it.
French onion soup (in a chicken stock??? Sysco chicken base?) was on the salty side, but good.
I think I have given up on Minella’s.

Great quality food, nice ambiance and quick service. Matzoh ball soup and beef gyro were on point! Portion was very generous making sharing an option. A bit pricey for a diner and definitely noisy. Parking was a bit of a mess causing us to circle the lot for a while before finding an open spot.

$ 26 breakfast for two. I have no idea why this diner is so popular.
Hubby and I arrived at 8:30am on Sat. Jan 16, 2016 after taking our car to Volvo for servicing. The bad: Only 5 of the 9 booth style window seats were full — all with only 2 people — but our server nonetheless chose to seat us at a teensy table away from the window. I was not happy but said nothing. Second, the menu offers a «wide selection of tea» but the server brought one single bag of el cheapo black tea. I had to request Green tea, which he brought. Third, to refill my hot water, he brought a little metal tea pot with which he sloshed water onto the table. Either our server needs additional training or he just didn’t much care about making us feel well taken care of. It was not yet busy while we dined.
The good: plentiful portions. I had the Mainline special: 2 enormous and very fluffy pancakes, 2 strips of crispy bacon and one sausage plus scrambled eggs which were less fluffy than I prefer but still delicious. NOTE: the pancakes come with «breakfast syrup» NOT REAL MAPLE SYRUP! Super efficient bus boys clear your dishes as soon as you seem finished. Attractive looking décor with classic counter.
Hubby enjoyed his onion and lox egg white omelet that came with a huge pile of home fries.
This is not a friendly diner where you can linger and hang out like the place in Seinfeld…

Some coworkers and I just had a great lunch at Minella’s. I hadn’t been there myself in probably about 15 years or so, and my boss suggested we give it a try as he goes there often with his family.
Anyway, our waitress was super friendly. Not overbearing or anything — just very talkative and lively. Can’t recall her name but she said she’d been working there for 36 years which is pretty amazing!
The food was really good and definitely worth the price — no complaints at all from our group of four. We ordered four different sandwiches — chicken parm, cobb, asiago and chorizo, and a chicken sandwich with bacon and honey mustard. They were all really good, as were the fries. I really liked the coleslaw and mentioned it while our waitress was there, and the next thing I know, she brings me another little container of it — very thoughtful of her! Also tried the matzo ball soup which was very tasty, and apparently the chicken noodle soup was really good too.
All in all, I don’t know why I waited so long to go back to Minella’s. I don’t think i’ll wait another 15 years this time :)

I have been coming to Minella’s Diner for over 30 years, and through several different incarnations of the diner. I give it 3 stars, because three stars is average and that is what Minella’s is… An average diner. Not bad. Not great. Just average.
The service overall is average. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not great. Some servers are very attentive others don’t give you the time of day. It does not seem to matter whether they are busy or not, you just get the service you get.
The food is also average. Obviously, some items are better than others. I find that I usually do best with breakfast items, such as omelets, as well as Greek items, including the Greek sampler, and pasta dishes. I’m not a fan of the veal dishes. The corned beef hash is clearly from a can. My family members enjoy many of their seafood dishes as well as the prime rib special. Most of the desserts are very good, especially the brownie sundae.
I continue to dine at Minella’s Diner about once a month because I know what to expect and what I’m going to get. It’s relatively convenient and open 24 hours. With so few other 24-​hour options I know this staple will always be decent when I am hungry.

I shared the corned beef hash, two eggs and waffles with a friend. Corned beef hash was too salty and waffles were rather plain. I sampled the dishes my other friends got — the blueberry pancakes were pretty good, with healthy portions of blueberries mixed into the pancake batter. I also took a couple bites of the the Spanish omlette — the ingredients did not taste very fresh and the omlette as a whole did not come together well. It is a lot of food for the amount of money though.

Minellas Diner is undoubtedly one of top and most affordable eateries on the Main Line.
The wait staff is consistent, happy to see you and treat you like a family member.
I can’t say enough about the food and the portions.
It is thee place for business and transactions.
As a producer for local Main Line public television I can’t tell you how many potential guests I have comfortably entertained at Minellas.
Truly a worthwhile experience and worthy of the Main Line.
John in Villanova

My wife and I were here this afternoon. We were at a few open houses earlier during the day and by the time we got here, it was around 3:30 and we were super-​hungry. Given the time of the day, the place was rather empty and we were seated promptly at a comfortable booth by the window.
The menu, if you haven’t seen it already, is *HUGE*. It is hard to think of an «American» food item that isn’t on the menu. Soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, pasta, seafood, ribs — you name it and they have it. Also like some other diners I have been to, they serve breakfast all 24 hours during the day and so there is a section of their menu outlining their many breakfast selections — pancakes, french toast, waffles — the usual. In the end after taking quite some time to look through the menu, we decided to go with a «double» Cajun Gorgonzola Turkey Burger, a short stack of french toast, 2 eggs, and sausage. As you can probably tell, the size of the order partly reflects our hunger *and* our inability to choose from this sprawling menu.
The food arrived in a reasonable amount of time and there’s no reason to complain. However, when it comes to its taste, the food was mostly average to disappointing. Since we had ordered the «double» burger, it meant that we had two burgers — not just two patties on one bun but literally two burgers! Both my wife and I had one each and found the tastes of the burgers to be worse than the average turkey burger we get. The patties were underseasoned and we couldn’t understand what was «cajun» about them (I can swear there was nothing cajun). The breakfast items were somewhat better but generally quite unremarkable. I found the french toasts to be devoid of much flavor and it was only after slathering them with the syrup and butter that I enjoyed those. But then again, I suppose if I seasoned cardboard with maple syrup and butter, it would have probably tasted just fine! The sausages were however good and both my wife and I enjoyed them. In the end, it was obviously far too much food for us and we ended up taking some of it home.
Beyond the food, we found the service (and servers) to be quite indifferent. I asked my server about one of the menu items and it was clear that she was not too familiar with the menu. It is almost hard to blame her given that the menu stretches to several pages (8 or 9 maybe) but then again, it doesn’t speak very highly of the restaurant. Also, my wife had Diet Coke but that never got refilled even though she was out of it half-​way through her meal.
In passing, I note that the place also seemed to cater to a significantly older clientele. As we were seated by the window, we could see that the three parking spots with the handicapped signs were nearly always occupied and towards the end of our day, there was a continuous stream of elderly patrons. Perhaps there was an old-​world charm to this place after all but that was certainly lost on us.
In the end, I found this place to be very unremarkable and forgettable. I am not from the area so it doesn’t look like I will seek out the opportunity to dine there again.

It was ok. It also could have been that we hadn’t eaten all day and it was 4 in the morning when we finally arrived at our destination. I will say the idea of a caprese omelette was a good one. The taste was there but I found the mozzarella to be too much and too thick. I have to remove most of the cheese due to this. My son loves the tuna melt and he had fries which were nice and hot. Hubby loves his French toast and the rest of his meal. I do find it was a bit over priced for diner food but it was our only option at the time.

This diner is an average diner located on the mainline. This past Saturday it was jampacked with families and a couple of other couples. Our drinks came out fairly swiftly considering the crowd and our food followed shortly after. I wonder why can’t diners serve Habbersett scrapple? It is so much better then any other kind I have ever had. I fear the people who are tourist order scrapple because it’s a «famous Philadelphia» food and they are not really getting a good feel for how it should be. Frankly, I should never let any fellow diner order scrapple unless my husband is cooking it. He makes the best crispy scrapple.
All in all our food was pretty good, if you like this kind if food. I only had a grilled corn muffin so I could nibble on my families over orders. Again each bite I had was ok but everyone else seemed quite happy.

Minella’s is the perfect diner for Sunday breakfast.
If you do indeed head in on a Sunday, expect a wait. But you’ll be waiting for something delicious if you’re ordering pancakes. Since I’d had french toast the day before, I took a swing at banana chocolate chip pancakes. For 3 ginormous pancakes, it was 9.95! Not too shabby. Plus, I was able to share with everyone at the table and still leftover.
Great spot in the middle of Radnor Township. Definitely going to come in again the next time I visit my friend at Villanova.