Q Street Diner
9 Q St., South Portland
767-0299
qstreetdiner.com
When I was 18, I lived in an apartment a few blocks away from a diner. My roommate and I stopped in for breakfast nearly every Sunday morning for two years. I loved everything about it: the bottomless coffee, the consistently excellent food, the efficient yet laid-back service, the no-nonsense pricing, and the feeling of being a regular on our second visit. Diners aren’t fancy or trendy or modern, and that’s the point.
Q Street Diner, tucked just over the Casco Bay Bridge in South Portland’s Knightville neighborhood, is a textbook example. It’s relatively young by diner standards — the current owners bought the building in 1998 — but it feels like it’s been there since at least the ’60s, its wood-paneled walls lined with old print advertisements and framed concert posters.
I met my friend Rob there on a recent Wednesday morning, grabbed a booth and sipped hot, fresh, commercial-grade coffee ($3) while we looked over the menu. It featured all the classics, like corned beef hash, biscuits and gravy, and three-egg omelets, along with a few outliers like grilled breakfast tortillas and an anthropomorphized combo called “Guy Smiley.”
Rob chose the Monte Cristo ($12.50): turkey, ham and Swiss cheese between two slices of French toast. It was tasty but a bit under-seasoned, easily fixed with a few shakes of salt and pepper. Rather than the traditional dusting of powdered sugar, the sandwich was accompanied by a ramekin of pancake syrup. (Real maple syrup is available for an extra $2.50, but Rob didn’t realize that until it was too late. Rookie move, Rob.)
I ordered a classic two-egg breakfast ($11.50 with choice of meat, $8 without). My bacon was thin and crisp, and the homefries were expertly cooked. Big, buttery slices of marble rye toast were ideal for mopping up the yolks of two perfect over-easy eggs.
In the furtherance of journalism, we also shared a single pancake, which was fluffy and delicious. I ignored the squeeze bottle of pancake syrup and spread on some strawberry jam.
A great diner differs from a café or a swanky bistro not only by its menu, but also its vibe. Case in point: during our meal at Q Street, our friendly server called me “hon” and never let our coffee mugs go empty. I felt like I was 18 again. What more could anyone ask for?
Q Street Diner is open Wednesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
