Yeah, Bob Evans is the worst of the three main breakfast places around here. The only thing that was passably good were the eggs. The potatoes were watery (cooked from frozen, I imagine), and the gravy was just...nasty. I'm of the belief that breakfast gravy should be more white than brown.
Of the three (Frisch's and Cracker Barrel being the other two), the food is marginally better at Frisch's, the presentation definitely is not, though the service is better. Bob Evans, the service is notoriously spotty and slow, and yesterday was no exception. Dirty cup, forgot the cream for the coffee, had to stop someone twice for refills, and the server seemed a lot more interested in chatting with her regulars than in waiting tables.
Cracker Barrel...if you get there on a good day, the food is likely ok, though I finally quit going altogether after three or four bad service/food experiences in a row, capped off by finding a metal ID bracket in my hash brown casserole. That was probably four or five years ago.
Cracker Barrel is also, by far, the nosiest of the three, and even when there's no crowd in there, it sounds like a busy school cafeteria, and I have a real issue with restaurant noise.
We have a couple of local places we also go to, they're about the same, but there's been a real passing of the classic American diner, I think. Probably killed off by Bob Evans and Applebee's and places like that, and the last shovel of dirt thrown on by the latest creation to pop up around here, trendy upscale places that offer no traditional takes on breakfast, but plenty of whole grains and avocado and other things a Midwestern farm boy wouldn't usually eat for breakfast.
I live in a farming area, in a farming town of 14K people, and there isn't a single locally-owned diner in town. There's Bob Evans, Frisch's, and the fast-food places for breakfast, and that's it. All the old farmers nowadays meet at McDonald's for breakfast.
