Lane's Family Restaurant - Fort Erie

The detour of the detour led us to this diner. We were treated with excellent service with warm smiles and plates full of food. The French Toast was excellent. And the side order of bacon was the most bacon I have ever received in any restaurant. The coffee was plentiful and fresh.This was a pleasant surprise. I am glad I got lost, although I could never admit as much to my wife.

I'm a picky eater and ordered side orders of home fries and sausages. Everything was cooked fresh and came out hot. The sausages were some of the best I've had. Nice, think and flavourful farmer sausages. Restaurant was clean and bright. Staff are amazing. From the welcome to the service. Definitely a place I will return to.

My experience here is mediocre. And before I continue, let me add I have 7 years’ experience in working in a family run restaurant and am familiar with all things small restaurant, how things work, appropriate service and so forth. This isn't me just some customer that always complains. Normally I write positive reviews, but if I can help the owners make improvements so that their business succeeds I will - as I wish the same for reviews for my family restaurant.To begin with, when my girlfriend and I first walked in we were greeted, by who I assume was one of the owners, which was nice. A warm welcome right off the hop. He was the chef and the entrance to the kitchen is right across from the restaurant entrance.As the place is tiny, it was a little hard to maneuver around especially when our table was missing a chair (the table behind us felt it was necessary to have 5 chairs for 3 people - mom, dad, daughter, a chair for her coat, and separate chair for her purse; no fault of the restaurants). The main point here is that the place is small. Which is fine, just be prepared to use your manners when moving through the restaurant.Once my girlfriend and I sat down, that’s when things started to get a little.... not to my standards, I guess you'd say. We found that almost everything we touched was sticky and some of the wasn't fully cleaned and still had some food on it. It happens, dishwashers are not perfect. However, the silverware should be inspected before having it placed on a table. I'm a stickler for germs and how easily they can be transferred and I noticed the two servers touched everything with their bare hands and never stopped to wash or sanitize them in between tasks. I wasn't overly pleased knowing that the same hands that handled money and touched dirty plate, silverware, and coffee containers were the same unwashed hands that we're handling my freshly made food.After waiting around for almost 5-7 minutes, I finally stood up to go find and retrieve menus for my girlfriend and I. This much time had been passed by in this very tiny restaurant and we had not been acknowledged by the servers. In a restaurant with only 10 or so tables, I was amazed by this. Around the 12-15-minute mark, we had finally been asked if we wanted any thing to drink.My girlfriend had coffee & I had apple juice. To add to the list or surprises, the juice, that cost $2, came out in a little teeny tiny 300ml bottle. For the price, I was expecting a full glass. I could go to Mcdonalds and get a large drink for $1.Once we ordered, we were told the food would be out "very soon". That's fine if it is not (which is wasn't) because I enjoy sitting and talking with my girlfriend, but that statement was very misleading.From here the surprises just kept piling on and on. My girlfriend ordered a cheese omelette and I ordered a regular breakfast with homefries. While the portions for both of our meals was good for the price, I didn't expect to find unadvertised ingredients in my food. The menu fails to state that the homefries are made with onions mixed into it. My family restaurant offers homefries with OR without onions and with is a very popular choice so I understand that they come with onions. However, anyone that is allergic to onions may have quite a surprise once they take a bite into these homefries leaving Lanes in a lot of potential trouble. To speak for myself, onions make my stomach turn for days and leave me feeling extremely sick. Failing to say that their homefries are made with onions is a big no-no in my books.To add to that, I asked for white bread and received whole wheat - it happens, I get it - and after telling the server I cannot eat any eggs that aren't full cooked, as I am allergic so they have to be cooked well done, my scrambled eggs still came out a little runny. The only part I enjoyed about the breakfast was my toast, sort of, and my girlfriends toast. Once our meal was over and we asked for our bill, I was surprised yet again and had seen nothing like this before in my life. I have included pictures for proof. The only number on my bill was the total owing amount. There was no breakdown of how much each breakfast cost, how much tax was added to the subtotal and in addition to all this, the apple juice I had purchased was not on the bill but I was charged for it (fair enough) but it NEEDS to be included on the bill. Everyone that a person gets charged for needs to be shown so there are no discrepancies on final prices.This put things way over the top for me and made my first visit to lanes very un-enjoyable.

I'm always happy to find a new place to count on for a good breakfast and I've found one in Lane's. I've passed it dozens of times and always intended to give it a try. I'm glad I did. The omelette I ordered was very good and came with a side of breakfast potatoes and toast. I was quite full afterward and was very much satisfied with what I ordered. The service was friendly and it did not take long at all for my order to reach me. I look forward to giving their lunch menu a try sometime soon.

We just moved to the area about 6 months ago..love this place! Yes it is on the small side, yes it can get busy, but the food is consistently good, homemade and always hot!! Thanks ladies for making this one of our new favorite spots!