The Palace Diner was re-opened by Greg Mitchell and Chad Conley in 2014, the sixth proprietors of the property.  They picked a Pollard Company car built in Lowell, Massachesetts in 1927.  It has been in Biddeford, Maine its entire life and is one of only 2 Pollard cars remaining in America.   The red and black car has windows on 3 sides on the top half of the walls.  Outside the yellow letters spell out their name on the red bottom portion of the car with a “Ladies Invited” sign next to it.   Inside green tile is below the windows and a well worn formica counter divides the diners from the stainless steel and wood walls and fixtures.   A large pass through window looks into the kitchen that was added in the 1980s.   They are open 7 days a week for breakfast and lunch.  They do not take reservations and we were lucky to be seated immediately.  The diner next to me said he waited in line 20 minutes for a one of the 15 seats at the counter.    It is a cash only place with a few parking spots out front but a large city lot adjacent to it.   The place had real atmosphere with welcoming staff and great food.  Make sure and check it out when you are in the area.

Set-Up

Food

The Omelet du Jour came with Palace potatoes and toast.  The flavor changes reguarly and actually changed while we were sitting there.  My husband got the one with broccoli, cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese and chose white toast.  It had a ton of cheese in the tasty omelette and the good toast came pre-buttered.  The potatoes were cooked, smashed and then fried to get a wonderful crisp edge but still have lots of fluffy potato on the inside.  It was a satisfying breakfast.  Hot sauce was on the counter if you wanted it.

The Lumberjack Breakfast included 5 flapjacks, two eggs, one meat side and Palace potatoes.  I’m not a fluffy pancake fan but these were wonderful and nicely browned on the edge.  A large pile of whippy butter was on the top which was plenty to spread on all of them.  The crisp bacon was smokey and generous enough to share.  The eggs were cooked a perfect over-easy with good runny yolks.  The potatoes were as above and delicious.  They had  local maple syrup for the pancakes that were lightly seasoned with lemon rind – which gave them that remarkable flavor.   This was yummy.