As I mentioned back in my review of Frazer’s Place, 2024 has ended up being one of those years that’s given me a lot of opportunities to finally visit some of those places I’ve driven by dozens of times and thought to myself “I should stop there.” One of these is the Big Apple Diner, located on Route-4 just over the border from Vermont (across from the former infamous Finius T. Flubberbuster’s Roadhouse). Pretty much every trip of ours to the Adirondack’s has driven past the Big Apple Diner, and coming back from one of my weekend trips in the Adirondacks, I finally managed to stop by and check it out.
From the outside, the Big Apple Diner is looking a little worn, but it’s right on the main drag, and it’s now pretty much the only restaurant between Whitehall and Fair Haven, VT, and almost every time I drive by the parking lot is almost completely filled, which is usually quite a good sign.
Inside, it has a classic diner layout: a large central serving counter on the left, a bunch of free-standing tables on the right, and a whiteboard at the back showing the daily selection of specials and available pies (hey, you’ve got to love a place that has a half-dozen varieties of fresh pie). It actually reminds me a lot of one of my old favorite-but-gone restaurants back in New Hampshire, Country Kitchen in Newport. Menu-wise, it’s basically got all of your American diner classics of omelets, egg plates, steaks, pancakes, and the like.
After looking over the menu, I decided I had to go with a classic: the Country-fried steak. This is always a bit of a risky dish, since it can be anything between a carefully butchered, cubed, and hand-breaded actual steak to some sort of frozen pre-breaded mystery meat worthy of a junior high cafeteria. But the dishes coming out of the kitchen were looking quite promising, so I went for it, and ended up being happy with the results: a nice, tender, flavorful, and reasonably substantial cube steak, with a decent, crispy well-adhered breading. A nice creamy sausage gravy, and some nicely cooked scrambled eggs and toast, and this was a well-above average of the classic dish, and thoroughly satisfying.
Add in a friendly staff and colorful locals, and I’m glad I stopped in. They are definitely one of my new go-tos when passing through the area around breakfast or lunch.
