Canon Restaurant Review: Marietta Diner

Earlier today, I was out in the old stomping grounds of the late Big Bossman, Cobb County, GA. Cobb County is a long drive from where I currently reside, so after making that drive, myself and my two compadres (my mother and my sister and Canon Review reader Maggie W.), were getting rather hungry. The first place that we chose to eat at was packed to the gills, so we decided to call an audible and eventually decided to eat at the Marietta Diner. The Marietta Diner is a 24-hour restaurant with a wide variety of items to choose from on the menu, and the outside of the building is made to look like a 50's style diner. The Marietta Diner was once featured on the Food Network, a fact you can't help but notice since there's a big poster of Food Network personality Guy Fieri next to the door. I had dined at the Marietta Diner once before earlier this year, and while my friends around me raved about the place and the wide selection of food, I found the place to be good, but not great. So, I was wondering what the second trip to the Marietta Diner would hold in store for me.

We got there at around 2:00 p.m. and the parking lot was full of cars. Luckily, even though the place was quite busy, we were able to get a booth as soon as we walked in the door. We took a look at the menu, which is about 12 pages long and has text covering nearly square inch of the page. It is safe to say that the Marietta Diner has a wide variety of foods that one can order at any time of the day. So if you wanted a seafood dish at 7 a.m., or some flapjacks at 7 p.m., well this is the place for you. It seemed to take a while before any of the wait staff noticed we were seated, but once our waiter came over we did not have a problem with service for the rest of our time there. We ordered drinks, and since I really needed some caffeine at the time I ordered a coke, and then we ordered our food. I didn't want anything too complicated at this time of the day, so I just ordered a well-done cheeseburger, which came with fries, two onion rings, and some coleslaw. Meanwhile, my mother ordered a Philly Cheese Steak which was covered in peppers, onions, and melted cheese and also came with fries and coleslaw. Maggie, who seems to eat at this place at least once a week since going to school down there, ordered the Shrimp Parmigiana, which basically is a bunch of shrimp served on spaghetti. Her meal also came with a choice of soup (chicken noodle, in Maggie's case) and salad, which Maggie would have no part of, so my mother ended up eating the salad.

I must say that I was happy to see that the Marietta Diner had a television in the corner showing the Falcons game. It wasn't the biggest television, but I could basically tell what was going on. The dining area itself is rather clean, and although it was packed and somewhat loud, it wasn't loud enough where we couldn't carry out a conversation. Actually, the noise level from the last visit of mine to the diner was one of the main turnoffs, as it was so loud that I couldn't hear anything but a constant stream of noise everywhere. That's not necessarily the restaurant's fault, I'm just saying.  Anyway, the waiter, whose name I unfortunately did not catch, was rather attentive to our table, as whenever our glasses even got to half full, or a plate had just been finished, he was there, and he was quite friendly while doing his job as well. A couple of other workers also would drop by from time to time just to see if we needed anything else.

If you ever want to check out the Marietta Diner, I must warn you of one thing. The portions are huge. So this isn't exactly the place to go for some 'light' dining. Maggie got a huge bowl of pasta and shrimp as her dish, which nearly took up half the table. Meanwhile, my cheeseburger was at least 1/2 a pound, and I got such a large piece of lettuce that I could have chopped that sucker up and had a respectable sized salad. Not to mention the mountain of fries on my plate and two huge onion rings that were about the size of 10 onion rings from Burger King. Not bad for a price of $5.50. There was also a deluxe size cheeseburger to choose on the menu, and I shudder to think about the size of the deluxe burger, as I have a feeling it would have been too much for me to handle. Heck, between the size of the meat and all of the cheese on the burger, I was pretty stuffed after finishing it off. As for the quality of the food, well I must say that I had no complaints whatsoever about my burger, the meat was nice and juicy, and cooked to my specifications, while they definitely did not go light on the cheese. The fries were also very good, not too crunchy or too mushy. As for my dining companions, my mother liked, but didn't love, her meal, while Maggie ate all of the shrimp but seemed to be expecting a different kind of pasta, so she wasn't crazy about the spaghetti. Well, live and learn. That did not stop Maggie from ordering a slice of Red Velvet cake to go, and the slice of cake she got filled a whole big-sized to go box. It was about as big as an entire half a regular sized cake at a grocery store bakery, and it would take me at least two or three times eating the cake before finishing the thing. But I've had a bit of this cake before, and let me tell you, the Marietta Diner's desserts are quite, quite good.

Overall, I enjoyed my meal a little more than the last time I was here, and while everything wasn't perfect, I definitely would not be against coming back to this place. I recommend you try out the Marietta Diner if you are in that neck of the woods, but you'd better be hungry, because they certainly do not skimp on the portions. Overall, I'd give the Marietta Diner an 8.1 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you any ideas for future posts, or thoughts about this post, than either leave a comment on the blog or send them to me at e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com