As Summer started to turn to Fall, we wanted to make sure we hit a few of the hikes that had remained on our to-do list. We had tried to hike Mt Chocorua last year, but poor weather forced us to turn around most of the way up. This time, the weather was looking a lot more promising, and since we wanted to get an early start, we needed a breakfast spot enroute to the trailhead. We’ve found several nice places over the years in Bristol, but this time we decided we wanted to try a diner, so we headed out to the Bristol Diner, located just south of downtown.
The Bristol Diner is a rare example of a Pollard Diner (I only know of one other, the Palace Diner in Biddeford, ME). Very similar in overall design to the more famous Worcester Diner, Pollard was based in Lowell, MA and made somewhat narrower cars (it was rare to see a Pollard Diner with anything except counter seating, there’s just not much room for booths). Like a lot of diners of this type, it’s had more than a few renovations over the years, including addition of an expanded dining room (with rather slanty floors with lots of New England “charm” and “character”), and wearing more than a few names over the years (when I moved to NH, this was known as the Riverside Diner). But the current Bristol Diner owners have been working on addressing a lot of the building’s deficiencies, and on our visit the diner was sporting some fresh Tyvek. Looking over the menu with some coffee, we chatted with the server who actually had a firm recommendation for what we should order: “we take pride in making real homefries”.
It’s really not that hard to convince me to order homefries, especially if it looks like the sort of place that is properly griddling them and not just serving up some deep-fried potato cubes. I was sorely tempted by the Benedicts, but looking over the list of omelets saw a nice combination that drew my eye: a provolone and pastrami omelet. This turned out to be a good call: this was a nicely generous three-egg omelet, very nicely executed without any scorching, and the provolone and pastrami made for a nice filling with some sharp cheese notes and a bit of salt and smoke from the pastrami. How were the much-vaunted homefries? Good. Really good. Probably some of the best I’ve had since the Fairlee Diner or the now-departed Tumble Inn: nice soft chunks of potato, properly par-cooked, and cooked just to the point of crispness without becoming tough, on the flat top like they should be.
Carol, meanwhile, did actually go for the Benedict. This turned out to be a really good choice, since the Bristol Diner has an outstanding Irish Benedict, with a really good, well-crisped house-made corned beef hash. I’ve had a lot of great Benedicts recently, and this was probably the best overall Benedict we’ve had in a while, everything hitting on all cylinders. I don’t often have “breakfast envy”, especially when my own breakfast was top-notch, but I definitely felt after tasting Carol’s Benedict that I should have ordered one as well.
So the Bristol Diner turned out to be an outstanding choice for breakfast, with a friendly staff, great food, and good prices. I’ll definitely keep this place on my short list.
