Billy’s Downtown Diner

9:26 - 10:00 am

We visited the flagship location of the now franchised Billy’s Downtown Diner on East Broad Street in Bethlehem. Billy’s is Not Your Ordinary Diner Ⓡ and boy do they live up to that trademark. While we have dined at Billy’s before, we were excited to visit and give one of the first reviews of an establishment that really elevates the traditional diner menu. 

Billy’s has a reputation for putting their own modern and creative take on classic diner food, often including Mexican influence on their menu. We were excited to see all the different options, but we stayed with our classics. Our waitress was super sweet, but definitely gave off strong nervous energy that made for a comical breakfast. She almost forgot that I ordered decaf, only noticing once she sat down my coffee cup. When taking our order, she repeated it word for word immediately after we said it and she put it in her Toast tab. She also refilled my coffee with literally a sip’s worth in the cup. We loved her and she was great at her job, she was just a bundle of nerves.

Bethany

The water was not chlorinated, which was very nice but the coffee was okay. It wasn't very strong in flavor so the artificial sweetness of the Splenda took over a little bit. Not my favorite cup of coffee but they have so many other nice coffees and beverages there that most people are not going to just get a decaf coffee. 

I ordered the OMG burrito, with the actual burrito containing egg, sausage, and home fries, topped with chili con carne (meat chili), a drizzle of sour cream, and fresh diced tomatoes and green onions. Honestly, it was incredible. In my opinion, the egg was super fluffy on the inside. The potatoes were delicious and well seasoned. The only thing I didn't love was the sausage had a very strong fennel flavor in it, which took away from some of the other flavors in the burrito. I really enjoyed the chili con carne on top. It's like one of their classic things on the menu that you can get on potatoes and other stuff too. It is on the sweeter side, so Ben didn't really love it because he felt like it took away from other flavors, but I really enjoyed it. It just depends on whether or not you like a sweet chili. I also appreciated the tomatoes and green onions. It really helped to have a little bit of freshness because the rest of the dish was super heavy. My only other complaint is that the plate that they served it on was a little too small. I needed to manhandle this giant burrito with a steak knife and fork so I wished they would have put it on a bigger plate. Truly one of the best breakfast burritos I have ever had.

Ben

They have fresh squeezed orange juice there. Not many diners usually have that but the ones that do it's usually delicious. This one is even better than the ones I've had in the past. It actually just tastes like you just squeezed the orange, which I know shouldn't be asking a lot, but sometimes it is.

The eggs benedict was fantastic. The english muffin was not noteworthy but that's fine. The ham was a little bit too smoky; that'd be my only complaint. The egg was cooked perfectly. The yolk was like gushing out and the hollandaise was probably the most flavorful hollandaise sauce I've had at any diner. The potatoes were so good. There were crispy parts and overall I would say that I could use a little bit more of the crispy parts. The potatoes were super moist and oily, but not in a bad way. They were actually seasoned to where I didn't feel like I needed salt or anything like that. They were just delicious.

high class diner food, worth every penny