The Lancer

Prices can’t be beat, the service can’t be beat, I go here all the time with my gf and we love it. The food is always amazing, it comes quickly and the staff is just amazing! If you have the chance to stop in I recommend you do so.

Super little diner. Great for breakfast. Can’t go wrong with the price and the standard THREE egg breakfast selections. The staff was very attentive and when they found out we were from the States, they were even friendlier.

So, from the outside, this place looks like a dump. But, you know, the parking lot is completely packed, so that is always a good sign. Inside, it is pretty shabby, too.
Don’t let the shabbiness of the place turn you away, though, because this place is awesome. The owner was also our waiter, and served us with humor and attentiveness.
This is definitely a place that is a local favorite, there are plenty of people who sat down and didn’t even need menus. Granted, it’s not a huge menu in general, just your basic breakfast things, and some lunch stuff too. I got Eggs Benedict, and Lee was in a lunch mood, so he got a hot turkey sandwich.
Both were excellent. The Hollandaise was freshly made, with a nice tart tang that can be hard to find. There is some magic dust on the home fries, that is a little sweet and spicy, similar to Old Bay but not the same.
Lee’s sandwich was also delicious. I stole a couple of fries and fished a little bit of gravy off of his plate, both were great. We both resisted licking our plates, but that is only because we pretend we are adults.
I’ll definitely be back! And you should go too, if you’re in town!

Had a great breakfast! The secret blend on the ‘taters was really tasty, but the outstanding part of breakfast was the service; friendly, funny, and quick!
Will be returning soon!

Great place to grab a cheap breakfast! 3 eggs, ham sausage or bacon and toast plus home fries (hashbrowns).

I have been eating at the Lancer since I was a kid. Now that I’m grown and have a kid of my own, it’s amazing that a good place like The Lancer is still there for me to share the same experience.
Breakfast at The Lancer is spot on every time, and the girls that work there are always. Friendly and accommodating, even when the place is jam packed.
Peter, the owner, it always helping out and making sure your meal is as you expected.
This is my #1 breakfast stop in Niagara.

Great place. Was in the area visiting Niagara Falls and saw this on Unilocal.It did not disappoint. A very good breakfast place.

Friendly service and reasonably priced food cooked as requested. This is a good spot if you’re looking for a greasy spoon. Gluten free options also a bonus.

This greasy spoon diner looks like something you’d find in the middle of nowhere rest stop. It’s got this weird yet awesome vibe, like the staff might kill you before you walk in or a fight might break out with someone being thrown through the glass (Please note that NONE of those things actually will happen to you if you go in) but when you walk in and meet the staff, they’re your typical diner staff. Fast efficient and friendly.
They’ve got all your breakfast and grease needs. I usually come here for the breakfast but also tried the gyros which aren’t bad at all.
Try the breakfast, get the bacon… actually always get the bacon and enjoy a cup of coffee. They’ll look after you here.

This little diner seems to be THE greasy spoon breakfast joint in St. Catherine’s Ontario.
What I liked the best about this place was the «free cookies on Monday» deal and the strange décor. I felt like I was in the real-​life version of the board game Hero Quest from the 80s. The seats looked like lava had exploded all over them and there was a strange castle and dungeon theme going on along the walls…
As for the food, our server unfortunately got our order wrong. We were in a rush to drive back home so we didn’t complain. What we wanted to order was the Lancer Special, which is your typical eggs and homefries served with your atypical gyro meat and tzatziki sauce (sounded sooo yummy). Instead, we got three eggs, some bacon/​sausage and homefries. They were good but nothing special. However, I want to go back and try the gyro breakfast!

All 5 star reviews?! WTH? This place is hilariously bad.
We arrived as a group of 5 for a greasy breakfast to help kick those hangovers (somehow I always end up feeling worse rather than better after these greasy breakfasts).
Let’s start with the positives. They have a great patio with benches in both the shade and the sun. You’ve got the option of the picnic style tables or 80’s McDonald tables. Awesome.
The menu isn’t overly extensive, which on a hungover morning, is not a bad thing. All their food is cheap too.
As for the service, let’s just say this girl’s last serving job was not the keg.
It’s a greasy spoon so you don’t go in expecting much but 50+ minutes and all the other tables around you (some of which arrived up to 30 minutes after you) having their food arrive first isn’t good. At about the half hour mark our server came back and reconfirmed half our orders (we’re pretty sure she forgot to put our orders into the kitchen). The food then came out wrong and half of our group got their food 10 minutes before the other half.
Crusty cutlery was just sort of dumped on the table as was the slimy ketchup bottle, grungy salt and pepper shaker and dirty cups with the pitcher of water.
I think the highlight for me was when the server plopped her quite dirty server tray onto our table with our drinks on it (along with some other table’s drinks, and some used cups) and walked away for a couple minutes with the instructions ‘take your drinks’.
To be fair to her, she was in a great mood.
***Disclaimer***Take this review with a grain of salt, this place is clearly a university favourite since it was packed with university kids but the service was laughably horrific.

I’ve driven past this place for years thinking it was a complete dive. My dad used to always say how popular it was «back in the day» but it looked like there hadn’t been too much changing there since the 70’s. I finally went for the first time recently and have a new breakfast favourite. I had the Lancer Special which I believe was two eggs, homefries, gyro meat (surprisingly good) and tzatziki sauce.
The entire meal was great and was cheap. There are options that will fill you up for as little as $ 3.75 so you can’t go wrong!

What: Stop 1 of 4 on Niagara mini crawl — Sarah L’s 5 star faves
Who: sarah l, Kat F, Dale M, Carleen L (who trekked all the way from Welland to join us!)
Why: To determine hash brown[1] superiority
This place is awesome. It’s a no-​nonsense diner that serves unpretentious, stick-​to-​your-​ribs type of food at prices that’d make even penny-​pinching parents say, «F*ck cooking at home. Let’s go to The Lancer.»
FOOD
The default breakfast is three! (not two) eggs, choice of bacon/​sausage/​ham, and toast for $ 3.45; add home fries for $ 1.45. I did a double take when I saw the menu prices and thought sarah l. drove us through a time warp back to 1982.
Since sarah l. is a regular here, I copy-​catted her order: 3 eggs sunny side up, extra crispy bacon, and home fries with extra spice. Everything was cooked perfectly but the home fries were the star attraction. I’ve never had home fries done this way but they were damn tasty. The taters were diced, parboiled, then deep-​fried to yield crispy sides, and sprinkled with some mystery «spice.» They were more like little nuggets of fat fries than the mushy skillet-​fried potato chunks I’m used to.
There’s been much debate as to what this mystery spice is on the home fries but I think I figured it out; it’s the leftover powder at the bottom of a can of Planters Cheez Curls with some extra dried herb mix thrown in. I’m not sure if sarah l. knew this about me but I friggin’ LOVE orange «cheez» snacks so by extension, I LOVED these home fries.
SERVICE
Friendly diner servers – not the surly kind full of back-​sass
VIBE
Think Lanford Lunchbox from «Roseanne» run by a sweet Greek émigré; the kitsch of the medieval knight theme is unintentional
MISCELLANEOUS
I like the sign outside written in what sarah l. calls a «Flintstones font.»
Peruse the menu for hidden Easter eggs while you wait for you food:
— Pancakes…$ 6.75
— Half Order (you do the math)…$ 5.25
— Plain ol’ Omelette — just the 3 eggs, and no imagination
— Mediterranean Liver Dinner: Fresh mushrooms, green peppers, blue diamonds, yellow moons, green clovers… just kidding!
If you’re within a 20-​mile radius of this place, f*ck cooking at home. Get breakfast at The Lancer.
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[1] sarah l. calls them «hash browns» but hash browns to me are the kind of taters you get with McDonald’s breakfasts so I’ll heretofore call them «home fries.»

Stop #1 on Sarah L’s List Of 5 Star Faves (
) was The Lancer, a St. Catharines staple that’s surely been kicking around for decades and decades. It’s staffed by Greek ladies who know your name when you walk in and welcome you like extended family, the décor is skewed to medieval times and the food is standard diner fare with extra sass.
At first glance, the menu looks to be filled with the usual suspects (club sandwich, three eggs, chef’s salad, etc.) but upon closer inspection there are sassy comments, retorts and qualifiers throughout. No menu listing is untouched, and each has had its price updated with a handwritten note (why not just print a new menu? Laminating’s cheap, yo) But where is the copywriter behind this menu? Because a look around the restaurant at the seasoned staff lets you know they certainly weren’t the ones responsible.
Our group requested five standard breakfast orders of three eggs with meat, homefries and toast. After all, this crawl was borne of the idea that Sarah L and I were gonna duke it out over the best style of hashbrowns. I’m happy to report that we do indeed agree on how we like our hashbrowns.: mine were bite-​sized and heavily seasoned with a zesty Mrs-​Dash-​on-​steroids concoction and they were quickly inhaled. Eggs were nicely poached without an oozy white in sight. Toast was epically buttered. All this for $ 5.
The Lancer closes at 4pm most days so get here early. I imagine it’s righteously slammed on weekends — a place as good as this wouldn’t last long in Toronto as a ‘best kept secret’, let me tell you.

THE Lancer. I remember when they finally got debit. Like a year ago. :)
I have been going to the lancer for 10 years and it has been open and run by the same people for probably 50 years. They have the BEST hashbrowns ever; period, the end. The potatoes are cut into fairly symmetrical cubes, boiled so they are fluffy on the inside and then deep fried so they are crispy on the outside. Then they are covered in mystery spice, which is top notch. More on this later. The bacon and eggs special is what you should get; I have tried substituting sausage and ham but the bacon is where it’s at. I always get chocolate milk to drink, and Suela is the best waitress/​owner ever. Even if it’s busy on the weekend, the turnover is fast so you won’t be waiting long.
Two funny Lancer stories:
1. I used to live next door to a man named Bernie in St. Catharines Ontario. He was so freaking cool — he has a huge 1990’s satellite dish that takes up almost his entire back yard, and 10 computers. He has wired his house to be voice activated and he has a voltmeter in the basement so he can see when a brown out is coming and he can turn on his generator. I was a neglectful home owner; I never cut the grass or shoveled the snow and I let things get really run down and I didn’t even care. Bernie’s place is immaculate and he STILL liked being my neighbour because I was quiet and didn’t bother him, even though it must have driven him nuts to see the quality of the neioghbourhood deteriorating in front of his eyes. Anyways, once we were out chatting about the neighbourhood and he said that he used to go to the Lander for breakfast every single Saturday until it was invaded by hungover college kids, and we discussed the secret hashbrown spice at length. He has tried to duplicate it at home on several occasions, and he swears SWEARS that it has chicken soup powder in it. Dunno dude.
2. My Dad is in Drum Corps and he does something called the Gauntlet every year with his buddies — they meet at his place in Niagara Falls and drive to a show in upstate New York stopping at every bar along the way. They stop at the same bars every year and the waitstaff knows them — once they showed up at one of their favourites and it was closed but there was a house next to it — so they banged on the door at 10am amd the guy totally got up and opened the bar for them. Anyways, this was the ‘morning after the gauntlet’ and my Dad, Dave and Paul were super hung over so I took them to the Lancer for breakfast. The Lancer was made in the 60s and not made for large men — the booths are tiny, and Dave Paul and Bruce are not. Dave and Paul managed to shove themselves into one side of the booth and Bruce & I sat on the other side… I looked up and Paul was sweating buckets. The waitress came by and Paul ordered a pitched of water; she came back with it and 4 glasses, and Paul said ‘oh you better bring them another pitcher, this one is only for me!’ He got up to use the restroom and he came back looking kind of guilty, like the cat who swallowed the canary. He sat down and looked around, and pulled a big sheet of brown paper towel out of his SLEEVE, and I was like ‘dude, WTF…’ and he said ‘I didn’t want the waitress to think I was stealing paper towels’
Lancer. 5 stars. Best breakfast, best people.