The Lunch Box

I’m giving The Lunch a box an impressive 5 stars. Located on East Main Street and right down the street from K Lamays award winning burgers, The Lunch Box is a piece of heaven nestled in the heart of the city.
First off, the food is ridiculously good. Portions are absolutely gigantic. Service is great and the attitude of each staff member is outstanding. The prices are unbelievable.
You want steak, eggs, home fries, and toast? That’ll be less than $ 9. The steak is an actual sirloin and not chopped up Subway meat or Steak-​ums.
You will leave this place full each and every time you visit. I highly recommend stopping by. You don’t even need to bring a friend. The entire staff will be happy to talk and joke around with you.
Pros: Food, Taste, Price, Portions, Location, Service, Atmosphere,

Small place with a homey feeling. Great and friendly staff. Perfect for breakfast, lunch, or midday brunch!

Enjoyed our lunch here today. Friendly service and steamed cheeseburgers. That seems to be the specialty of the area and The Lunch Box wins the prize for a couple of years.

This place rocks!!! I’m an east coast guy and know a good breakfast spot ! They have the best Eggs Benedict I’ve literally ever had! Thick Canadian bacon, awesome side of home fries, and the eggs benne was cooked to perfection! Anita and Donna were super friendly ! I can’t leave out the fact that Anita makes the eggs Benedict hollandaise sauce from SCRATCH! Five stars folks! Get over there!

God awful. How can you screw up eggs? The worst coffee I have ever, and I some some bad coffee before. The service is terrible, and they have just a counter basically. My stomach is turning as I sit here and wait for my check. Stay away from this place.

Very cozy. I like the fact that that you can order breakfast all day. I had the chicken soup and a steamed cheeseburger. The soup was home made and the burger was delicious. The service was excellent. Great place for breakfast and lunch.

The Burger was great! It was juicy but not greasy. The staff was very friendly and provided great service.

It was a nice experience the breakfast was great and the service I will definitely go back

Great breakfast sandwich… lots of bacon! And the texmex omelet… delish! The lady working was super friendly and talking to another customer but also quick and accurate! Awesome customer service!

I was driving home from a wedding and I found this place on Unilocal. The food was excellent with massive serving sizes and the service was even better!

Ted’s is generally considered the definitive steamed cheeseburger. After trying The Lunch Box’s version today, I can say that they either match or slightly best Ted’s. Hard to say… but I’ve never believed in absolute rankings anyway. They’re good. Very, very good.
I ordered the «Deluxe» cheeseburger, which comes with lettuce and tomato (and apparently mayo as well, though that isn’t mentioned on the menu), and a side of macaroni salad. Detractors of the steamed cheeseburger claim that the cooking process removes all flavor from the meat. Those people are out of their minds. The beef was bursting with flavor, and it went wonderfully with the sharp white cheddar, which was melted to a perfect consistency. The creamy, tangy kick of the mayo helped tie everything together, and I may consider making that a standard addition to my steamed cheeseburgers in the future.
(I’ll also add that this burger was a million times better than what I recently got at Eli Cannon’s — and half the price. Funny how that can work sometimes!)
I’m not really qualified to review the mac salad, as it included tuna — also not revealed on the menu — and tuna just isn’t my thing. It did have generous pieces of bacon… but also peas that were clearly canned, the sole black mark in an otherwise great meal. Fresh peas can make such a difference; I would suggest that they switch accordingly, and update their menu to more completely cover what is in each item. Their mac salad with fresh peas and no tuna would have been an A-​1 winner for me.
They had both the front and back doors open, owing to gorgeous weather, and there was a nice breeze going through. That plus plenty of daylight and a friendly staff made the place very inviting overall — a casual place where you can drop in, and leave in a better mood than when you arrived, and not just due to the food. Were I a Meriden resident, I imagine I would come here far more often than was healthy.

Had the eggs Benedict today and it was fantastic. The sauce was handmade and the eggs were cooked perfectly. There was two people behind the counter and both were very nice. I will be making this a regular breakfast spot for me!

Corned beef hash and Jalepeno and Cheddar Omelette were delicious. Coffee and service were great too! It’s a small storefront with a lunch counter and seating for six. Worth a stop.

I rolled into The Lunch Box on a whim on a quiet Wednesday morning looking to grab a bite to eat on my way to the airport to head back home, away from Connecticut.
My first impression of this establishment was that I had gone back in time to some 50s-​era diner. The restaurant is essentially a long bar facing the grill. Always the one to appreciate tradition in the modern era, I appreciated the simple layout. It’s homely and welcoming.
Shane, the chef, recommended that I try the steamed cheeseburger, so I went with the Military. He cooked it up for me in a jiffy, and soon I was marveling at a monstrous burger (Shane told me it was a slow day, so he hooked me up with a larger portion — what a good guy!). Cheese was oozing down the sides. Thick, lean cuts of bacon were protruding at every angle. Green peppers, onions and pickled jalapenos were spilling off the soft, white bun, still dusted with flour, and onto the plate. Incredible.
This massive mound of delicious meat and fixing was too big to pick up, so I fork and knifed the bastard to death. The meat was lean and without gristle. I’m not an expert on ground beef (or anything for that matter), but the texture was perfect. It was neither too dense or too firm, but rather seemed to melt in the mouth. To me, this is the signature of a good burger. Overall, the flavor profile of the burger was excellent, but it was missing something — I’d loved to try the other combinations to discover which reigns supreme.
Still, the combination was of my own choosing and it was done meticulously well. I’m awarding this joint a perfect 5 despite some small room improvement. The fact that the burger was served with a bag of chips was almost an insult to the excellence of the burger, but I can’t fault a place for free anything.

I feel a shame of myself. I lived in Meriden for 15+ years and never stopped here at the Lunch Box and boy have I been missing out one some awesome breakfast. The Ham steak was at the least a ½ inch thick. I am not sure what lunch is like, but I will find out soon. The breakfast was simple eggs over easy, home fries galore, the thick cooked to perfection ham steak and white buttered toast (real butter) and a cup of café. See the plate for yourself. I strongly recommend to stop by here for some good, down to earth food. Oh and by the way the chef Shane is no joke. He’s fast.
Ok today is May 5^th and I am back at the Lunch Box. But this time with my son. I went with the BLT on white and that was delicious. But the review is base on what my son ate. My son ordered the Boston Steam Burger. Shane the chef lovely assistant which I regrettably did not get her name put together this Boston Steamed Burger with baked bean and Cheddar white cheese just oozing out of everywhere. Then chef Shane said to us. I think bacon will make this burger over the top. The word bacon made my son’s ear propped up like a puppy waiting for a treat. Shane was cooking the bacon fresh. My son took one bit of the Boston Steam Burger and gently place the burger to rest on his plate and removed the top bun and patiently waited for the bacons. The result was from his words, finger licking good! Need I say more. See photo of the Boston Steamed Burger before the bacon was even thought of. Shane you did again you little rascal you! Nice Job Lunch Box! We will return!
Update 5÷13÷15
Today I hit the Lunch Box for breakfast and Chef Shane was not behind the griddle. However, a new face which I have not seen before was at the griddle. Ok so how did my breakfast turned out? See for yourself. SuChef Donna’s creation. Careful Shane there is a new chef behind the griddle. Hahahaha
As expected, excellent! Thank you Donna!

This place is great. Old school luncheonette with a few tables as well as counter seating. I was recommended the steamed bacon cheeseburger and it was awesome. Owner was friendly as well. I will be back to try a few other memories from the menu.
I recommend you try this place!

I missed out on the Steamed Cheeseburger which they’re known for. We had lunch on a weekday and it was 50% full. The service was fun and engaging. We learned a lot about Meriden. Overall, the food was fine.

I had banana and chocolate chip pancakes with a side of bacon! Pancakes were golden brown with powdered sugar. So yummyyy
Bacon was perfect, just how I like it nice and crispy. Definitely 5 stars!

The lunch box used to be my go to place for breakfast. However over the last year or so it has really gone downhill. Today (7÷20÷14) was the kicker however. We called in a breakfast order, and were told 10 minutes. We ordered (3) blueberry pancakes, wheat toast with butter, side of bacon, and a blazing blue burger. 10 minutes later my wife arrived at the location to discover that not only was our food not ready, it had not even been started yet! So my wife sat there and waited and watched as the proceeding order took an entire hour to make… one… item… at … a … time.
Seriously, 1 hour! For a few pancakes and a burger. An while apologies were made for long it took (they gave us the burger for free), its still hard to believe. So, anyway we get home and eat our food; this is what we found:
Blazing blue burger– No blue cheese.
Toast — basically untoasted, soggy.
Bacon — reminiscent of jerky. Hard and chewy.
Blue berry pancakes — simultaneously soggy and tough, with a very odd hard to describe sour flavor like spoiled milk. Absolutely nasty.
So not only did we wait over an hour for a called in order, but the order we received was barely edible and incomplete. The only things eaten were the burger and the bacon; the toast and pancakes went directly into the trash with very little eaten.
This is just the highlight of what has been several unsuccessful meals from the lunch box over the last few months. In the past we’ve gotten several imcomplete orders, menu items made without key components, and quite often delays. But this was always overshadowed by the fact that the food was usually quite good. However today was the pinacle of a lousy experience, right down to the food itself and quite frankly we won’t be back.

I’ve tried three steamed burgers this week and this was by far the best!
I wasn’t expecting much after the other local burgers but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to drive far so I decided to swing by for a quick bite… I’m so glad I did! I recommend the Blazin’ Bleu burger.