West Bank Diner

Was over at Mayday Books and as I was leaving I caught the smell of some good cooking. Walked by this place and as I’d never had Somali style food before I decided to give it a shot. The décor isn’t anything to write home about but places like this rarely spend a lot on fixing a place up, it mostly functionable that way less money is spent. The place was full of regulars so I had a seat with my stack of books and was promptly greeted by the young man working there. Ordered some chicken which came with some rice and a banana. Other than the obvious Med spices the dish could have passed for Mexican food. The chicken had bite but wasn’t too hot. It came with what could be called a nice salsa verde. The drink I ordered was basically a sandia jugo. Next time I go back I will be sure to try some other things. Very reasonably priced. The people inside are nice so if you have a problem with Africans or Muslims do the rest of us a favor and go somewhere else, otherwise stop in and enjoy some good cooking.

this place is awful. the food is bad, bland and poorly made. they seem to run through servers constantly, or the ones they have don’t know whats going on. they are often missing items and are really slow. i live in this neighborhood, this place is really not worth the time.
their breakfast burrito is a joke. cold, bland, fatty cheese, wilted vegetables. the eggs were hard in several of the dishes? the soda from the machine was flat. I ordered waffle fries only to have her tell me a moment before my meal came out that they didnt have them and were substituting hashbrowns. i dont like hashbrowns, which is why i had ordered waffle fries. thanks.
honestly there are dozens of other good restaurants in this neighborhood that deserve your business. hard times, afro deli, the weinery, the acadia and the triple rock are all superior. don’t waste your time or money.

Not that I’m trying to do a meta-​review here, but comparing my own experience at WBD, I tend to think everyone is right.
The décor (if you could describe the mostly barren place as having décor) is not notable. On my visit, the place was empty (with the exception of one guy reading the paper, not that I found anything creepy about him).
Service was a little off. I was hoping to get in and out fairly quick, but the waiter seemed to think we wanted to linger. When I think diner, I think quick and efficient. Not so much.
The chicken breakfast burrito was excellent. The chicken was perfectly moist and tender, the eggs cooked perfectly, the potatoes salty and perfect. A real crowd-​pleaser. The waffle, less so. The waiter preemptively apologized for it, saying they were having some trouble with them, and comped it. Coffee was good (it was Peace Coffee).
So, overall impression? Place is nothing special. It’s cheap, some of the food is good. Nothing to go out of the way for. I’d be interested in trying a few more of the items before definitively weighing in, but I’m not sure if I’m motivated to. Maybe when one of the more reliable breakfast places is too crowded.

My wife and I visited West Bank Diner last Tuesday evening around 7:30. We were one of the only guests in the diner at that time. I was tempted by several items on the Breakfast menu, but I ended up getting the Cedar Burger because of a special they were running (including fries and a drink). My wife went for the same special, but asked for mushrooms on her burger. I found the food to be average overall. The burger was not especially tasty, more like a seared slab of ground beef. My wife said she enjoyed her breakfast. The fries were a little better.
As I think about my experience, my observation is that the breakfast menu seems to be somewhat more inaginative than the lunch/​dinner menu. I intend to visit again at some point in the future so I can try a breakfast item.

My wife loved her breakfast burrito. I ordered the Belgian waffle and curry chicken. My waffle was okay, but dry and my curry chicken was super flavorful, but unfortunately was heavy handed on the salt and ruined the dish. The fresh squeezed OJ I ordered was fantastic. The service was really good even with the language barrier and the chef came out and chatted with us a bit which I thought was a nice touch. I just wish the food was a little more consistent. (Oh, my wife wanted to mention their restrooms were very clean.)

My good friend Sara S. has been talking up a storm about West Bank Diner so I had to check it out.
We went on a weeknight around 8 pm, unfortunately not the greatest area to find parking in, $ 3 in the lot behind the building and a bit sketchy at night. This place doesn’t have set hours and only a Facebook page and their Unilocal page right now for details.
I had the Red Curry Chicken and Belgian Waffle. I split the Waffle with Sara. It was large, crispy, and light but super filling. The Red Curry Chicken was great, not overly curry or saucy, a good sauce to rice, veggies, and chicken ratio. The veggies were crunchy and the portion was large.
Atmosphere could use a lot of work. It’s a large space and doesn’t seem homely and could use some more light. The staff, a Somalian couple, is friendly and does their best to welcome students, there’s event a 10% discount with a student ID. Otherwise, I will be back to try the french toast and eggs benedict as I’ve heard great things about them.

Very friendly and easy to get a seat here. Breakfast menu items are exceptional. I enjoy the french toast and order it every time I’m in town. It’s just starting up so there are occasionally a few quirks to the experience, but in time I think it will be a fine addition to the diner scene on the West Bank.

After reading the Unilocal reviews for this place, I thought it would be worth it to give it a try. So, I convinced the BF to try it out for lunch one Saturday when we were craving greasy diner food.
It was 1:30pm when we walked in to a completely EMPTY diner. I take that back… there was one sinister-​looking fellow at a table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Honestly, it felt like I’d stepped into a creepy horror movie and the man behind the newspaper was going to turn around with a decayed face and suck my blood or something. Seriously, it was weird…
We seated ourselves at a table near the counter, and a waitress handed us menus. We looked them over, and although the all-​day breakfast was somewhat appealing, we really came for burgers and waffle fries (which I’d heard are quite good). So, we ordered our drinks, and we waited and waited for them. The waitress actually came by to take our food order before we had our drinks. We ordered our burger & fry combos, but a few minutes later (still no drinks), she returned to tell us they had no burgers! What?! Seriously? It’s lunchtime and you have zero ground beef/​beef patties… and you had to wait nearly 5 minutes to determine that and inform your customers? The BF glanced over the menu before finally deciding we should’ve gone to a nearby place we are familiar with instead. Since we didn’t even get our drinks in the 10 minutes we’d been at WBD, we opted to leave.
So much for trying someplace new. I was really disappointed. I have a
gift certificate that is good for dinner only – I will give this place one more try (if for no other reason than to use the GC). Maybe they’re just too new, aren’t busy enough and haven’t worked out the kinks yet. I sure hope so; otherwise I don’t see them lasting very long.

This place was fantastic! No pork on the menu as it’s run by some very wonderful Somalis (I think). Not just a greasy spoon, the ingredients are quality and their slightly different take on the dishes is awesome. Go here for breakfast! The only thing you might be disappointed with is that you might be the only people in the place when you go. They’re a new business so hopefully people will realize this gem is here shortly.
Fresh squeezed OJ and very well made Peace coffee are enough to get me to come back.

Only been once for dinner. Got the Red Curry Chicken. Was quite good, chicken was nice and juicy, the curry had a little bit of kick without being «hot» spicy (although your average Midwesterner might disagree). Rice was at the perfect consistency and everything kind of came together very nicely. Kind of an unusual dish given the rest of the menu (sandwiches, burgers, chicken wings, and breakfast), but I’m not complaining.
Service was a little slow considering it was not very crowded, but not unbearably so and probably magnified because I was very hungry. The waitress and the manager were both very friendly and accommodating. No complaints.
Prices are reasonable and they also have a 10% student discount.
Edit ¹²⁄₈:
Been here a couple more times more in the past few days. I had the beef hash (very good) and the California Burger (meh but the fries were phenomenal). My buddy got a mushroom omelet (meh but the hash browns were great) and we shared an order of french toast, which was fantastic. On the whole, a little hit or miss, but their hits are VERY solid and the misses are just mediocre with some saving graces.
I agree with another review that says the lighting could use work. I get the aesthetic they’re going for but it feels like a cave. When you walk in during lunch hour it suddenly feels like it’s late evening.

I want to like west bank diner, but I am afraid they are off on a rocky start.
The atmosphere is kind of weird. The walls are nice and bright, the tables are very diner like, the lamps are darkish and totally at odds with the rest of the décor.
The menu is typical diner and they serve breakfast all day. They have more than a couple of interesting dishes on the menu and breakfast all day is always a favorite. However, what we got was rather under seasoned, even if I have to say that the hash browns were crisped to perfection.
The service was slow. It took us almost one hour for lunch. One of the waiters clearly didn’t speak English well enough to understand us and the manager seemed to be a bit lost running between the kitchen, the tables and the waiters. He also got our check wrong, but promptly corrected it when we told him.
I think I will give them a couple of months to improve on their service and food and give them another try, but I think they need to get a firmer grip on their business.

This place is great! We were the only ones there during a weekday lunch, but I predict that business will pick up very soon. This is a no-​frills diner with a surprisingly varied menu (and they serve breakfast all day!). Offerings include your basic burgers, french toast with your choice of berries, and popcorn shrimp with aioli. I had a chicken sandwich with waffle fries. I’d go so far as to say the waffle fries were perfect. Our server was as sweet as can be, too.
Prices are very very reasonable to begin with, but students get a discount. Check this place out!

After discovering that the Noodles & Company nearby had moved to a different location, the large group of people I was with was without a place to eat. And then we noticed West Bank Diner. We decided to check it out since it was apparently a new restaurant and it would be nice to try something new.
We were the only customers there on a Saturday night at dinnertime, but that was alright with us. The TV up front was displaying CNN and later sports, but there was a noticeable lack of music like most restaurants have to liven up the place.
Anyway, a man who knew English as his 5^th (wow!) language took our order from a menu with a variety of staple restaurant foods including burgers, sandwhiches, pastas, and all-​day breakfast items (which is always a plus).
After we all ordered, it was almost a 30 minute wait until we got our food. Normally, this would be unacceptable, but since there were about a dozen of us who showed up at once, and there was probably limited room on the grills/​friers/​etc., it would easily explain the wait.
Now, maybe it was the wait that did it, but there was just something about the food when we got it. The waffle fries had this great crunch to them. The wings had a spice, but were not so hot that you couldn’t enjoy them. The chicken sandwich had nice juicy meat, great bread, and just thinking about it makes me want to have it again. Seriously, the food was an amazing change of pace for a group of college students who normally are stuck with dining hall food. The next time we go out to eat, this will definitely be up there on our list of where to go.