Rick's On 5

Place is very clean, organized and cozy. Server was friendly and courteous. I ordered a chicken soup with rice, and a breakfast burrito. My mother ordered a regular bacon, egg and homefries with toast. Burrito was decent, nothing special about it in particular. Same with regular breakfast. We both ordered orange juice with our meals. Soup was warm, but was definitely not chicken. Redish brown broth, vegetables and seemed the dark meat cubes tasted saltier and more like beef chunks. I mentioned this to the server and she said she could take it off the bill if i didn't want it. That their chicken soup was "different". I still wanted a warm broth as part of my meal, so I said thank you and that it was fine. Overall bill came to about 30ish. Overall better prices and better staff than Colony diner down the road, but wouldn't go out of my way to eat breakfast here. More competitively priced breakfast with better seasoning, ingredients and options in Meriden.

Awesome $5.05 Breakfast Special. Two eggs OE, 4 strips of bacon, home fries, rye toast and coffee, yes coffee too. The folks here are very friendly and attentive. The order came out in less than 4 minutes, kudos to the kitchen. My server did the follow-up within 2 minutes of the order served. Oh, and the rye toast was high quality that stayed warm and soft the entire meal. Good coffee too.

Went to ricks the other morning for the first time. When you go in, it’s quaint and quiet. Visually there’s some things that can be improved to the establishment like the brown water stains on the drop ceiling etc… otherwise the layout is decent. Our waitress was friendly and quick. We ordered the waffle, eggs, home fries, bacon, and toast. Here is my honest review: the waffle was sub par. It was not fully cooked inside and the butter they serve is not quality more of a bland Margarine. The eggs were your typical diner style along with the bacon and toast. However, the toast would’ve been good with a good butter not that cheap restaurant depot brand. The problem I have is with the home fries. Now home fries are generally prepped 1-2 days ahead and they heat and go them per order. The home fries were not cubed, not sliced, not shredded… , kind of a mash up of a really bad hack job. It’s not pretty to look at. Usually home fries are par boiled, seasoned with onion powder salt pepper and a dash of paprika then thrown on the flat top to get that golden outer crisp & soft warm potato inside. This was not the case. These potatoes were drenched in paprika to the point where 1 that’s all you taste, and 2 so much so it turns your plate orange. You literally cannot taste potato & forget bothering to dip in ketchup because again it’s all paprika. More is not always more. Also the plates they serve the food on are massive. I mean unnecessarily large. Which ya know what, probably easier for the waitstaff to serve that way… but I’d rather get a smaller sized plate with actual quality food.