Classic Cafe

Decent breakfast joint food without frills. I was surprised by the quality and quantity of in-​season fruit that came on my waffle. Service was basic-​efficient without being rude but just barely. I would have loved a coffee refill. Ultimately, the food is good but not special and a bit pricy for what it is. I wish I could give 3.5 stars.

The food is nothing special, and is pretty bland. On a Sunday morning the staff is quite rushed and disorganized. There is a 50% chance that you will not get your toast.

They don’t speak English, the service was slow, my fork was dirty and there was something floating in my cup. Disgusting.

I’ve been to this place a bunch of times but the last experience was so bad I’ll never go back. We waited about an hour for our food because they forgot to put our order in. We saw three tables that came in after us order and get their food before we did. One table that came in after us ordered, ate, paid and left before we even got our food. The waitress didn’t say anything to us about how long it was taking and didn’t check on us at all. She and another waitress made sure they had time to sit down and have their food though. Waiting an hour for eggs that take 10 minutes to make is absolutely ridiculous. When we finally got our food, not only did it taste bad but each meal came out one at a time 10 minutes apart from one another which made for a horrible dining experience. The turkey in my girlfriends club sandwich was so slimy and she said it had a weird taste like it was going bad so she picked most of it out. Mine tasted microwaved and or friend sent gets back and didn’t really eat it. Never going back.

Nice & pleasant staff.
The food is really bland. Nothing is especially good. Nothing is especially awful. I guess «barely good enough food» is their goal here. We come here when we don’t really have any other choice.

I typically find myself driving, occasionally biking into Davis Sq. for breakfast or over to Watertown for my diner fix… have not been for lunch but this humble little joint in the heights fits the bill with fairly priced, good, tasty food. Well seasoned out of the kitchen my omelettes hit the spot and the kids always seem to be happy with the 2,2,2,2 (2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 bacon). yeah you get it. So the tasty food, fair prices and the little to no wait to get a table puts Classic Café in my win column. ((Note: Cash Only))

Staff is always very friendly. The owner makes you feel like you are a part of her family!
Food is very good, lots of choices.
But it cash only, our first time here we had to run across the street to the ATM
Overall an awesome breakfast spot!

Overall this place isn’t anything special. But that’s probably why I like it. A small town breakfast restaurant with delicious food.

Arlington has a dearth of options for breakfast/​brunch, so I’ll come here occasionally. Honestly, it’s just very average. Food is fine, coffee is fine, waitstaff is fine. The wait is usually short, but the tables are packed together very close.
Nothing about the classic café stands out, one way or the other.

very nice locally owned business Mimi is very nice and very sociable good food good service i reccomend to anyone

Food was good especially the pancakes !!! My husband had an omelette which was very big and very cheesy !! Very clean and staff was nice and friendly !!#!

Very disappointing omelette breakfast and a Bland salad that my dining partner had. Coffee was just average, and ambience was lackluster.
It makes you wonder why these folks got into the restaurant business
in the first place.

This is my favorite breakfast places in Arlington. It’s a great restaurant for families. Reasonably priced and amazing staff. I definitely highly recommend this place!

The breakfast deal was pretty good… sausages were good, eggs cooked like I asked and ok potatoes –try a little salt! But the pancakes… my father who is NO culinary savant makes better pancakes without a recipe. They were heavy and doughy, not light and fluffy like good pancakes should be, (I seriously need a nap!) and tasted like they were made from a generic pancake mix… not even Aunt Jemima or Bisquick! Come on guys… you’re a diner for peters sake! How hard is it to make pancake batter from scratch? Five or six ingredients is all you need… I really thought this would be my breakfast spot, but I’m gonna have to keep looking!

Saturday morning? Lady and I arrive at Classic Café to a reasonably busy breakfast service. It only got busier the longer we stayed.
Quick polite service — the Big Breakfast ($ 9.95) has 3 eggs, 3 bacon, 3 sausage, sauté mushrooms home fries and two amazing blueberry pancakes served with butter and powdered sugar.
The 2222 is the same as the Big Breakfast minus the mushrooms and served with two of everything ($ 8.99) — lady friend orders this with eggs sunny side up. Regular pancakes were excellent.
Coffee, OJ. A total win on all fronts.

This place has terrific home-​cooked food by the owners who are from Albania. They are provided gracious and friendly service, and charming atmosphere. They recognized me after my 2^nd visits, and I never feel rushed. I’ve been here for 3 lunches and 2 breakfasts. As I stated in my tip, I love her stuffed peppers, which I have had 3 times. Their portions are large, they had Lamb Stank on the lunch menu, but it is a lot of food. They do close at 2:30 pm in the afternoon.
For breakfast, I had a standard breakfast (eggs, beacon & pancakes), that was all cooked as I requested. The second time my family and I had Sunday Brunch there. My husband order hash, only to find it came from a can, he was very disappointed and I was surprised that they don’t make their own. One of sons ordered the Belgium waffles with fresh fruit, he was disappointed, there was more whipped cream than anything else and waffle was soggy. My other son got standard breakfast and he was happy with his meal. I got omelet and was happy with it. They do have a huge menu of omelets, all very good, as well as interesting variations on the usual breakfast fare.
I agree that is a good family restaurant, especially for young children, there is a supply of playthings which is a hit with kids. They do not yet accept a credit card, which is a problem for those who are new there, but definitely this place is worth a visit.

Where to start?
There’s the waitress, who got annoyed the minute I asked to sit at the counter. Her annoyance grew when I refused hash browns. How much did she expect a single girl to eat on a weekday morning? She finished off my meal by presenting me with two receipts (one for my egg sandwich, one for coffee) and keeping the change as a tip.
The coffee has a 1-​refill limit (really?), which is probably for the best, since more than that would burn a hole through your chest. The aforementioned waitress refilled my cup when it was about ¹⁄₃ empty. Does that even count?
And I prefer my egg sandwich on a roll, rather than a bagel or english muffin. Or toast — what is that? Still, the egg was nicely done and so was the bacon. But as I tried to get on with my day, I found I needed to take an emergency bathroom break due to «violent indigestion,» if you know what I mean. Classic, indeed.

Ok… Classic Café is a DINER. Yes its humble, no it’s not «filthy». It’s not the Ritz Carlton, but I didn’t expect it to be either! All the servers I encountered were very pleasant! In fact, I observed my waitress dealing very diplomatically with a very miserable patron, (who might have been one of the one-​star-​leaver-​yelpers on here: p)
The prices are awesome, the menu is pretty expansive for brunch (11am-​ish) time, and they offer a :) **Full Irish Breakfast** :) Yes, complete with black pudding and beans! You can’t find that at any «Irish» establishment in the city! It’s decent too! I knew full-​well when I ordered it that an Irish breakfast, (a.k.a. a «fry-​up») is cooked in pure fat, (lard or butter). (I was not going «health conscious» that day, obvo.) So, I will not complain that the eggs were greasy, that the sausage was greasy that the beans were greasy… (you get it.)
If you know what diner food is, and you still want diner food, go to Classic Café. If you know that waitstaff are humans and not just people-​pleasing robots, go to Classic Café. I’ll be back the next time I need a trans-​fat-​transfusion Irish brekkie :)

Seems like people are pretty divided on the Classic Café. I can understand that. It is what it is: a simple diner. Is it as filthy as some other reviews might lead you to believe? No, but it’s not pristine. I’ve never had bad service, but it can get pretty crowded sometimes, mainly with early morning geriatric couples or families with kids. Sometimes the waitresses are personable… sometimes not.
What I really love are their selection of omelets, they have a lot of interesting combinations, the apple sausage one is my favorite. Still, it’s mostly run of the mill diner food: fried eggs, hash, toast, that sort of thing… and if I’m eating at a diner in the first place well, that’s usually what I want.
Definitely not more than a 4 star place, but I like it for what it is, so that makes it more than just a 3 star «okay».

Overall, a decent breakfast option if you are in the area. They serve breakfast whenever they are open, and I had the 1111 — one egg, one bacon, one sausage, and one pancake (you can choose from all of their pancake varieties). It came with home fries and I added toast.
I loved that this was an option because this is usually what I want for breakfast food. I ordered my egg over medium and they got that right, the bacon was great and the sausage was decent. I ordered the sweet potato pancake and enjoyed that — tasted more like pumpkin pie than sweet potato though and only had fake maple syrup. However, my toast was pretty burnt, and the home fries were lackluster. My husband got one of their many varieties of eggs benedict. He was so-​so on the sauce and the eggs were poached pretty hard, but he was satisfied.