Zak's Diner Elgin St - Ottawa

We love Lilly! 5 of us went in and ordered like 8 milkshakes half an hour before closing time and Lilly was happy to serve us. Felt like we were in the kitchen at a friend's house. She's so funny and kind. Give her a raise!

We went to Zak’s twice during our visit to Ottawa. The first was for breakfast. The staff was less than personable. We were seated immediately as it wasn’t overly busy. However, it took close to 45 minutes to get our food. Portions were huge and food was decent. Egg texture was rubbery.We noticed a few people get milkshakes so we thought we would go back for dinner a few days later. Again, we were seated immediately. There were only three seated tables so it was not busy at all. We were seated for over 10 minutes and no one came to the table. No water or drink order, no acknowledgment from our server (assuming we had one). There were two employees standing behind the counter chatting the whole time we were waiting.We got up and walked out, passing the two talking, again no acknowledgment. We went to a great Italian restaurant next door. Funny enough a family that was sitting at Zak’s ended up coming in shortly afterwards. Clearly they were ignored at Zak’s, as well.We will never return or recommend this place.

If you are looking for a diner you better go to the Elgin Street Diner(two blocks away)which is way better than this place.I was really disappointed by the $10 beef soup, it is very small( can finish in 3 spoon) and too salty. There is no beef at all — just some frozen vegetables.The sandwich is mediocre. Service is cold.

Good food, especially the shakes. The day we went they were understaffed and the wait was long.

Had a very poor experience there. We waited an hour for our food. I feel like anyone with any experience in a restaurant should know this: 1) If someone's order is forgotten about then THAT ORDER BECOMES A PRIORITY2) Don't serve people who arrived after those whose meal has been forgotten BEFORE you serve us. If we complain our food has been forgotten then we will be the next to be served not the people at the next table who ordered AFTER we told you our food was late!3) Don't make us ask FOUR times where our food is4) When you have a delay of an hour, at least bring the cutlery to the table YOU HAVE A LOT OF TIME so people can eat as soon as their food FINALLY arrives.5) When we then have to ask for cutlery, bring it. Don't bring ONLY knives and explain that there are no forks to be had. That just makes us think you are punishing us for complaining about our late food.6) Offer a discount in fact when I ran a food establishment if anything like this happened I automatically made the meal free. At least offer a coupon for the price of our next meal.Terrible service. Would not recommend.