Rocko’s Family Diner

Rocko’s Diner… Where do I begin?
First off, this place is hit and miss (more miss than hit from my experiences) and the demographic is well, Mission.
I find that although this place is well reviewed, that many of the patrons don’t know any better, don’t get out much or both. For an independent restaurant (I’m not a fan of the corporate /​franchised places but I can see why most are successful… consistencey!) they could do a lot better with the quality of their food and service.
I don’t know what is so difficult about greeting your guests at the front door while you are waiting for a table to become available! OK, yes! I know your busy… but please don’t ignore me! Strike one.
Second, their coffee just sucks! Just because you’re a diner doesn’t mean you have to serve diner coffee! There’s nothing worse than a bad cup of coffee… especially in this day and age with the popularity of gourmet coffees. I don’t get it!
I have yet to experience anything but a good cup of coffee at Rocko’s. You’re better off to go to Bent Wrenches Autoservice (near the Fraser River on Merchon St) and ask Bernie for a cup of his ‘Garage Grind’. (It’s almost as bad actually but at least it tastes like coffee… somewhat) Actually I think Bernie mixes in recycled motor oil to give it its special flavour.
Lastly, our server forgot to place our order with the kitchen, thus we waited over 45 minutes before our now hurried order was served. Eggs were wrong, pancakes were contaminated and the sausages were overcooked (they were downright crispy actually and were probably taken from the rejected heap of food they keep for just an occasion) and no apologies were given for their mistake! We knew that our server forgot to place the order because we asked another server about our order just previously. It was only then that the scramble to get our breakfast out started.
I would have muched preferred the pre-​apology from our server than try to pull the wool over our eyes with the ‘we are busy ’ façade. The food was gross.
All in all, I have given this place several chances but fortunately for me, there are far better choices in the upper Fraser Valley. I guess this is why I continue to patron Lou’s Grill in Abbotsford… which is just over the bridge from Mission by the way.
Sorry Rocko’s, I won’t be back!

Best milkshakes ever ! Any kind you could probably imagine, and its nice that they let you mix two flavours. The food is a hit or a miss, usually it is what youde expect. Great greasy dinner food. I went recently tho at 4am and my eggs were over cooked and i didnt get as many as i was supposed to either. Also the breakfasts are usually waay better than the lunch-​dinner menu.

This place is consistently delicious with good service. Nothing amazing but always great. I will return multiple times.

The last time I was at this place was a while ago .I am just posting this now because I just found out about this wonderful site ( Unilocal)…Terrible experience .terrible food .my eggs where grey blue green on the back like the cook scrapped the grill but did actually clean it … when my food arrived not only was my eggs a funny color the waitress had her dirty dr ed locks hanging in our food… but when I made a comment about the eggs she said this was normal. .I asked to speak to the cook and he/​she refused to come out and eat these «NORMAL» EGGS (that I hadn’t touched) I have called and asked for the owner to call me back iv even msg ed them on face book asking to speak to the owner to this day no one has made the effort to contact me back :(very disappointed

Mostly come here for the midnight need of shakes! Been here a couple times for breakfast, all around ok place

Not many good places to eat in Mission, that’s a fact. EIther the food sucks, the service sucks, or both.
Fortunately, Rocko’s is the exception. Staff work very hard here. They are overworked for sure but they keep their chin up.
This is a really good greasy (hole in the wall) diner. Food and soft drinks are surprisingly pricey but you leave satisfied.
When visiting, I recommend sitting on the east side of the diner away from the bright fluorescent white lights. While the mammoth colossal burger seemingly is their favorite, it is very messy to cut and eat, it also have some cheap weiners in the mix which to me cheapens the burger. The patty tastes like Costco’s sirloin beef burger patty. Fries are unlimited and you can pretty much order dishes any way you like. Their club house sandwich seems rather popular.
All and all, definitely one of Mission’s few decent eating places. I’d recommend it even though my liver and stomach had issues after the meal.

Great food. Good selection. Reasonable prices. Been coming here for years and years. The gourmet burgers, the fries and many of their other dishes taste just delicious. Rockos is the best.

I read about this place on Unilocal and I was in mission early one morning so I thought I would stop by and check it out. It has the old diner feel to it, which is kinda neat. Waitress was friendly with a lot of body art. I ordered a butter scotch milk shake and the Deep friend cream cheese french toast. Everything arrived in a timely fashion. I was the only customer in the diner so it’s not like it should take very long.
The milk shake was delicious, but I think its pretty hard to screw up a milk shake. The Deep friend cream cheese french toast was also excellent. There might have been about 20% extra deep fried batter on it that I didn’t eat. Otherwise its a very unhealthy, yet tasty and pleasing dish to eat. There was also an excellent strawberry compote provided with the french toast that complimented it nicely. It was sweet, not too sweet for my taste; but there was most likely sugar added.
If I’m in the area again at some weird hour when nothing else is open I would gladly go back. But would probably explore other places in the area if I was in mission during normal hours.

Well…
Yummmy… So far I had the French vanilla milkshake and an order of onion rings…
I’ll be back for a burger and. You guessed it, a milkshake.
Love this place!

Good, but not great, food. Fries and gravy. A burger. A turkey sandwich. A milkshake. If these are what you want, you’ll leave happy and full.
Definitely nicer inside and out than it used to be. Used to have a bad rep because of its clientele, but the owners cleaned it up and have restored it to a good family diner.
This is not a retro place where they have tried to make it look vintage, so don’t expect jukeboxes or the like. It’s an authentic place where a lot of real folks regularly meet and eat.
Prices are average. Open 24 hours and worth visiting if you want the diner experience.

What a dissapointment today. In previous years I’ve gone to Rocko’s it’s been pretty good. But the last two times, particularly today have been ‘bearable’ at best. With inattentive and disengaged servers, and food that most certainly isn’t worth the price being charged, there’s not much reason to come here.
Today was the «Beef Dip» (which I did not get ‘X’ factored), with fries and gravy. Pretty simple dish. But what I got was a heavily buttered toasted bun (which was soggy due to too much butter), with very little dried out fatty roast beef. There is no way that this roast beef was made today. Even yesterday would be questionable, as it headed towards the definition of ‘jerky’.
And this is a diner. You’d think the fries would be rock solid then. Nope, soggy, barely lukewarm. How long were these sitting? There were only 3 tables seated at the restaurant, and it still took 20+ minutes to generate soggy fries? Did someone walk those over from Safeway down the road? Even the gravy was off, with a heave ‘anisse seed’ flavor. Licorice gravy. Wonderful.
However, the au-​jus was great. Not too salty. If you like au-​jus, I highly recommend getting this dish, and holding everything else.
Sorry Rockos, but I’ve found other places in Mission way better to eat at, which happily for me are cheaper than you.

If I’m in Mission this is the place to go to, it’s not the best burger joint I’ve been to but probably the best in the area. I had the double burger with mushrooms & cheese, poutine and a peanut butter milkshake. Let me say I can eat a lot and I was stuffed, so if you’re hungry and don’t want crappy fast food head here. The interior is classic 50 ‘s diner and the only waitress working was great.

I used to love the place until I became dependent on lactose intolerant milk. It’s the only drink I enjoy when I eat diner food
I brought some with me and they would not let me drink it with my meal because «no outside drinks» allowed
I explained that I have four kids that will be heartbroken if I leave and I can’t drink their drinks and they said sorry (even checked with the manager) who claimed it was for health reasons that they can’t allow me to bring a drink in because it might get «mixed with the food» hahahaha
That was a slap in the face and I just wanted to leave. But I stayed for the kids and watched them eat while staring at my unopened drink
I will never return

You haven’t eaten in Mission unless you’ve tried our Rocko’s (burger and a shake), Eleni’s (greek), and Mission Springs Pub/​Restaurant. My favourites in Mission.

Stopped in here on our way back to Vancouver. Both myself and my husband were starving! My husband went for the Behemoth (I think that’s what it was called) basically everything you could put on a burger stuffed between two grilled cheese sandwiches!!! I can’t remember the name of mine Rockos something or other, basically 3 patties on the burger.
While we were waiting some people sat at the table behind us and were looking through the menu and I over heard them talking about the 2 meals we had just ordered. Saying how they were so huge and basically heart attacks on plates lol
This didn’t deter us as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now nearly 7pm and we had both been out in the great outdoors working up quite the appetite.
Food arrives and yes, they were big!!! My husband’s especially, should have taken pictures; sorry :(
The pickle on top of my burger looked like it had been sitting under a hot grill all day, dry and wizened looking. The patties were OK, nothing to write home about, but what really let it down was the plastic processed cheese! Yuck: b Same plastic cheese used in my husband’s grilled cheese, maybe ask for cheddar instead if you do go.
Fries were really good and also the gravy that came with them, yum! My husband also ordered a chocolate mint milk shake which was very nice!
Service was good, very pleasant lady :)

A sad day indeed, I stopped in for the Wednesday special and was informed that it is no more. Along with all the other weekly specials, poof, end on an era. Thank you for all the great meals, I really enjoyed sharing them with my friends. I’ll be looking for another diner that has daily specials!

Great little breakfast joint. Yumm potatoes. Just a regular dive, decent place, okay service.

Great little diner! Seen some mixed reviews on this place but we loved it. I got the Pulled Pork Sandwich: AWESOME. My wife got the Monte Cristo and she didn’t really like it only because they use processed cheese. If you get it, maybe ask for cheddar? I agreed… had a bite and the cheese was not great. French fries are cut on site for sure: Amazing! Real, fresh potatoes. The place was very clean too. You know, no ripped seats and dirty tables. Something you might expect from a small old diner but this place was clean! Service was good too. I recommend it.

50s diner, meets double wide trailer, with a little whiff of 80s biker…
I’m still not entirely sure if I find it kitschy or a little unnerving! (the smells emanating from the bathroom kept me constantly reminded we were in a trailer).
I have passed by Rocko’s so many times, but given its redneck looks, I have not been in the mood to test out the place until recently… when i needed a place to meet early for breakfast.
The little diner is pretty bustling scene, and obviously a popular place for locals 24 hours. I could see the overnight crowd just starting to scrape themselves out of their seats or slump over in the wide booths, as the families and weekend bruncher crowd was starting to arrive.
From the first read of the menu, the place looked to be offering large portions of home-​style classic American comfort food. They had the typical burger platters, mixed grills, a little tex mex, and a large 24 hour breakfast menu, with offerings from benny’s to deepfried cream cheese stuffed french toast with «strawberry sauce» that had me cringing and my stomach croaking «oh no you don’t!!». I settled on the Rocko’s skillet, with sausage, soft poached eggs, and hollandaise on the side.
The end result was a huge plate of double fried pre-​frozen hash browns, sliced overcooked sausage, bland pre-​packaged shredded cheese blend from Costco, a little bit of fried onions and mushrooms, and eggs that came in a cup at least 5 minutes later (they were perfectly poached thankfully, but waaay to late to the plate), with a side cup of absolutely disgusting powdered hollandaise that tasted of butter flavoured cream of wheat. I was annoyed my eggs came 5 – 10 minutes after my dish was served. Why can’t you just time it right and serve the eggs on top, like it is supposed to be? the components were edible, but I felt like a child with a playdoh factory toy, having to put my meal back together again. At almost twenty dollars for my meal plus a mug of tea, they need to do much better than this.
My friend who has real issues with gluten, requested the mixed grill with ham, and asked for some sliced tomatoes instead of toast. They acted like this would be impossible, and seemed put out by the request. Yet their burgers include tomatoes… so I’m sure they have a lot sliced up ready to go in the back. They brought them out with her plate, but still seemed very perplexed, and included some jam packets on the plate… a little jam with your ham?
Rocko’s deserves a two star, but I’m giving a star for the nostalgia and the chuckle factor that this place brings to mind… of eating out, loudstyle, with family on sunday’s…but the commitment to food quality needs a bit of thought. If they consistently used real quality ingredients, and did the small details right, I would be back here often, as it definately has its charms.

Great atmosphere and fantastic service; this place is a real as it gets.
Usually, in greasy spoons, I’ll stick to a regular breakfast, however with my search and desire to compare various Eggs Benedict; I took a risk and tried theirs.
The poached eggs were cooked perfectly, however there was way too much Hollandaise sauce, in fact the dish was swimming in it (this sauce is supposed to compliment not over power the dish). Add the fact that the English muffins were not toasted, and you get really soggy Bennies.
One things however is that I’m not sure if the sauce was homemade because it did not taste like many packaged brands I’ve eaten before but if it was, it may have been the cheaper variety. If it was made from scratch, the texture was nice and the colour perfect, however there was something missing in the flavour.
All in all — I’d go back for the service, and another type of breakfast, but I doubt I’d eat the Bennies again