The Marietta Diner Family Restaurant - Marietta, Georgia

Our culinary tour of the Atlanta area found us in Marietta, GA this week at the Marietta Diner.

The Marietta Diner is owned by a Greek family and while you'll find the typical breakfast offerings and patty melts on the menu, you'll also see many Greek specialties as well.

When we were seated, along with our menus and the standard bread basket, we were given spanikopita, a delicious Greek spinach pie. That was unexpected and a very pleasant surprise.

Spanikopita - Greek spinach pie

My love for diners goes way back. I love everything about them, the atmosphere, the attitude and the food. My favorite diner meal is a grilled cheese sandwich and fries and the Marietta Diner didn't disappoint.

The menu at the Marietta is massive. There are page after page of omelets, sandwiches, burgers, typical "blue plate" meals and those Greek specialties. I looked over the menu but I pretty much knew what I was going to order.

After giving us a little while to look over the huge menu and enjoy our spanikopita the server came back to take our orders. I ordered the grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato and my dining companion ordered the bacon cheeseburger. We also ordered some disco fries which according to the menu come covered with cheese and gravy. These sounded enough like the poutine that I love that we gave them a shot.

Disco fries!

 Before we knew it the food was out. My grilled cheese came with a pickle spear and a side of potato salad. (Confession time, I'm not a big potato salad fan, unless it's warm German potato salad but this was not that) My friend likes potato salad so he had it and said that it was ok. Let's be honest, none of this is fancy food. It's just good simple food with no pretense to be anything else. I enjoyed the food at the Marietta Diner. It was exactly what I expected it to be.

Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Tomato

Bacon cheeseburger

That all said, what I was most looking forward to was the desserts they serve. Most diners have a dessert case, maybe even an iconic round glass case, home to cakes and pies. Well, the Marietta Diner takes the dessert case to a whole other level. The server actually took me to the case to pick out the cake or other dessert that I wanted. We walked up to the case and our server led me through the almost overwhelming variety of choices. I decided on the Many Sins cake, with its many layers of chocolate, mousse and whipped cream. So good!

Mmmmmmm, cake!

 The Marietta Diner is a typical diner with a twist. You can get a good grilled cheese sandwich here or bacon cheeseburger and also spanikopita, moussaka and souvlaki. If you ever find yourself heading to the Marietta Diner my advice would be to skip right to dessert. If you have room after your giant slab of cake I can recommend the grilled cheese sandwich and disco fries.