Buckhead Diner

I have not been back here in over 10 years, maybe more than that... This place never left me with an impression, just kinda a neutral meh feeling. Everything seemed so fake or forced. A true diner is welcoming and cozy. A diner doesn't have valet, $100k cars parked out front, a priority seating reservation, nor overpriced mediocre food. A diner is for the working people... Good home cooked food on the cheap or deep fried shit when you're pissed drunk at 2AM with a black eye and a missing shoe. I have lost my dignity many a nights sitting solo at a diner in the middle of the night and those were some of my best moments. So, when did this diner concept become a tourist destination with a pricey attitude? The answer is since the very beginning. Time to make a revisit after a decade or so and see if I'll make it back again in another ten years.
The whole priority seating reservation is a fucking scam. They will still make you wait for at least 15 minutes even though there's tons of open tables ready to accommodate the hordes of giddy fat asses like me drooling over the milkshakes. What is this... A night club? To make themselves look trendy and more busy than it is on the inside? Basically... But just with overweight tourists with bad fashion instead. I think it's more like a time out box for all the tubbers because they don't want a buffet scenario where shit is knocked over and small children crushed from the rush to the fried chicken steam tray.
The hostess had the personality of a zombie, moping around like her shift will never end. I guess I would too if I had to lead those waiting cows to pasture around the place. The pretty hot server was much better, a nice balance of perky and ditzy in the right places. Yes, she was blonde but I don't know if the carpet matches the drapes. Just take my order and feed me, I'm too exhausted to make small talk with you...

Roasted Red Ace Beet Salad. If the beets are the stars of this show, why are they hidden under a fucking Cha-Cha-Chia herb garden? Maybe mixing it all up is the trick. That's better. It's an ok tasting salad. It's well dressed but could use a tad more seasoning. This salad has been around for ages and found on every menu, nothing that exciting but the chicks dig it.

Sweet Heat Thai Chili Calamari. I totally forgot about this infamous tourist dish. If I'm gonna be one of those oinkers, I might as well eat from the trough. This is so overly sweet with that HFCS drizzled over everything. The crust was crispy but all you can really taste is the sweet spooge and chewing like a camel with no distinction of calamari essence within each bite. Every table had an order and it was a huge hit with my fellow fatties.

Chervil Scented Jumbo Lump Crab Cake. Those giant chips are pretty good. Really crispy but no hint of vinegar (vinegar powder) as promised. The cake itself was decent size and had a good amount of crab but the filler was gummy from sitting around waiting for an order. The grainy mustard sauce was salty and did nothing for the crab cake except drown out the trace of crabiness if you decide to swipe each bite with it. It's not horrible but I wouldn't get it again.

Southern Pan Fried Organic Springer Mountain Chicken. Let's get this out of the way first, the slaw sucked big time. Totally bland and tasteless. The mac n cheese was gooey but was lacking in the flavor category. The curly mac was cooked spot on and the cheese coated the pasta well enough but the cheesiness of it was disappointing. The chicken batter/crust looked very decent, a nice golden brown color looked promising. Crisp/crunch factor was very good. The thickness was acceptable, any thicker woulda made me sad. The seasoning needed to be heavier since the coating was thicker. The buttermilk brined chicken was tender and juicy but on the smaller side as suspected due to the thicker crust. The pieces were almost indistinguishable...Couldn't tell which was which. I picked up the one that looked like a leg and it turned out to be a breast. The thigh looking thing was a leg... And so forth and so on. It's like mystery meat musical chairs. It's a pretty decent chicken but definitely not a cheekan destination.

The silly bread service... Reheated hard mini roll and corn bread muffins. The rock hard butter didn't help either.

Chocolate Egg Cream Soda and Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Milkshake. Lookie here, if y'all ain't even gonna try to get a egg cream right don't do it at all. This egg cream was so watery and had almost zero flavor or effervescent. I guarantee you they ain't using  Fox's U-Bet choco syrup in there. It was flat all around but the milkshake was better... Not by much though.

This joint is like a way overpriced Applebee's. I really couldn't tell y'all if the food was much better for the high price tag. I know the chubby tourists who flock here would like to think so but their palate ain't that sophisticated to begin with to tell the difference. This place does serve a purpose and that is to keep sweaty tourist beasts away from the good stuff around town. This fat fuck won't be coming back here in another decade... But you know who will. Oink oink.


3073 Piedmont Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30305
404-262-3336
https://www.buckheadrestaurants.com/buckhead-diner/