Opinion: Columnist reviews Metro Diner, finds it mediocre

If you’ve been keeping up with my column, then you’ll know that my ongoing project this semester has been collecting stories about bad local restaurants and then visiting them, like a discount Gordon Ramsey. Recently, I put out a post on Facebook asking OCU students to share about their worst dining experiences. The very first response that I got was from a friend who talked about how her order of avocado toast at Metro Diner had brown avocado and toast that was burnt black. Metro Diner is a national chain which serves your standard diner food like pancakes and eggs for breakfast and meatloaf and burgers for dinner. About two years ago, they opened up their first OKC location about five minutes away from my home in the northern part of the city. Since I pass by Metro Diner so frequently, I’ve always been kind of curious to check it out.

I wanted to see if my friend’s experience was a one-time ordeal or if this was something that other Metro Diner customers had run into. I asked others what they thought about Metro Diner, and the overwhelming response that I got was “meh.” The general consensus is that it was an OK restaurant, but it definitely wasn’t great, especially when compared to all of the other great restaurant options around OKC. These lukewarm reviews and general disinterest in the restaurant is exactly what I’ve been looking for with this bad restaurant project. As soon as I heard this feedback, I rushed to call in a to go order at Metro Diner.

I figured I had to order the avocado toast to see if it was really as bad as my friend said. I also went ahead and ordered a side of hash browns because fried potatoes are delicious. If you mess those up, your restaurant has some serious issues on its hands. Right away, I noticed the avocado on the avocado toast was way more brownish-gray than it was green. I picked up my food about three minutes after I got the notification that it was ready. So in theory, the avocado shouldn’t have been sitting out long enough to turn that color. Maybe they prepared my order super-fast and just waited to notify me, or maybe the avocado was wonky to begin with. The world may never know. I also made a note of checking to see if the toast was burnt, but fortunately, it wasn’t.

Overall, the avocado toast was well seasoned. In addition to avocado, it had slices of tomato as well as some sort of seasoning which I couldn’t identify, and it tasted good. However, this might be one of the messiest dishes that I have ever eaten. Because of how the dish was constructed, the avocado and tomatoes kept sliding off, and it just wasn’t a pretty sight. As for the hash browns, they were fine. They weren’t really seasoned, but they were super crispy, which I appreciated. Just like with the avocado toast though, this dish ended up being really messy. The hash browns were extremely oily and greasy, and I guess part of that is to be expected when you fry potatoes. But still, there was an actual pool of oil at the bottom of my to-go container by the time I got done eating.

Overall, I have to agree with most of the people that I talked to. This is a pretty meh restaurant. The food was edible, but it still had some issues. I can think of many other places that I would rather recommend, especially if you want good breakfast food. In a city that is home to Cafe Kacao, Hatch, Syrup, and HoneyBunny Biscuit Co, I just don’t really see the appeal of going to Metro Diner. Maybe I’ll come back here someday to see how their lunch and dinner options stack up, but for now, if I had to rate this place, I would give it a solid two and a half stars out of five.