The Square Plate

We stopped by to check out this new to us place the other morning for breakfast, I was impressed with this place especially after reading the negative reviews on here. Obviously these people are competitors or people who are just used to the many bad places around town. We were seated promptly and our waitress was very friendly, we were given coffee and our orders were taken almost immediately. The décor is neat and clean which is a pleasant change from some of the older looking/​feeling diner/​restaurants in the area. I ordered the big breakfast plate and everything was cooked perfectly. My girlfriend had the vegetable omelette which she loved. The other couple that accompanied us were very happy as well and all of us agreed that we would most definitely be going back.
My advise would be to ignore these negative reviews and judge for yourself, I’m pretty sure that you’ll be pleased.

AWFUL place, and terrible food. just another place owned and run by Greek people where they want to call it an American food, yet serve some kind of blended Greek/​American scenario made with the absolute worst and cheapest ingredients. You can tell everything comes from the food supply truck and its frozen and then heated up? just awful! the décor as well is very dark, dank, old style, I felt we were walking into some 70’s diner from hell where the people act very odd, nobody working there seems friendly at all, just like robots and the food, EEh! Not so good! I would say try someplace else?

Please change your ways you chose to open a restaurant. Close if you don’t care enough to keep your kitchen clean.
Oct.7, 2015: Restaurant temporaily closed with 38 violations Roach excrement and/​or droppings present observed on light-​colored wood underside of dry storage shelf/​toast counter area. Roach excrement found inside aluminum foil box on a shelf below a slicer. Roach activity present as evidenced by live roaches found: 7 live roaches found on dry storage shelf under passthru window in kitchen, 2 eggs sacs observed on the shelf, 4 live roaches found in an aluminum foil box on a shelf below a slicer, 1 live roach found under the table top of a slicer table at an hole where the leg mounts to the table. Staff was advised to remove table from establishment. 7 live roaches seen on an Orkin sticky trap dated Sept. 30 under a 2-​bay sink next to a slicer prep table. 5 live roaches on the wall behind a sticky trap removed from water shutoff handles. Stop Sale Order issued for potentially hazardous food due to temperature abuse: 51°F corned beef hash. Oct. 8, 2015: Restaurant reopened with 8 violations

Well, since my last review, we have stopped going to Square Plate. They have been sited numerous times for leaving food on the counter and improper food storage and temperatures. I understand this happens on occasion, but repeatedly getting the same violation? No reason for that. We won’t be back.

We stopped in around 10am for a late breakfast, was the only person there when I entered, though a few people came by before I had left. Ordered a Denver omelette for myself, while my mother who also came had French Toast. I’m not a big fan of coffee, so I had some milk with breakfast. They had a small glass of milk and a large glass of milk on the menu, which I didn’t realize until it was too late, so the waitress assumed I wanted a small milk. She also asked my mother if she wanted more coffee frequently, while she didn’t ask if I wanted more milk at any one time. Other than that, the meal was good, and you get a good quantity of food for the allotted price paid.
A note about parking: this shopping center has allotted parking for the various stores in the Mainlands shopping center. This complicates things way beyond their intended purposes. For instance, there’s a nail store right next to the restaurant. If you go to the nail store, then go to the restaurant, do you get towed if stay at the Square Plate too long? Or vice versa? Make life easy for yourself and use to unmarked parking spaces in the center of the shopping center. Might save you a significant headache.

While I am very familiar with the fact that snowbirds generate good income for restaurants such as Square Plate, would recommend that the next time they book a party of 15+ that they close the restaurant to anyone else. I know they ticked several of their regulars off that day, for lack of service or interest. Was serving two bowls of soup and two over easy eggs with toast that difficult? After a 45 min wait, at the insistence of my dining companions, we left without eating.

Excellent Staff, super fast food all homemade. It’s like a piece of the great Jersey diners nestled in Sunny Saint Pete’s. Be Careful the plates are enormous enough for two. :-) Way to go!!!

Very mediocre. I was very put of by the spotted, dirty looking, plate. Coffee was nasty. Sausage patties were VERY greasy. Not a place I would frequent at all. I am definitely looking for a better place to eat.

Really good «home cookin» type of place for early diner. Expect to have leftovers if you get the taste of Italy.

I was searching for Italian and this came up. The menu is a mix of Italian and Greek but was mostly diner. I was hesitant to order Italian so I got a hot turkey sandwich. The portion was huge and the turkey was good but the gravy was bright yellow and flavorless. The waitress was attentive and helpful and the atmosphere was diner.

What a surprise! Popped in for a quick lunch. Don’t judge this place by driving by. Was not expecting the nice décor and great menu selections. Very clean, pleasant manager and waiter, large portions with reasonable prices. Will be back here to try out breakfast or dinner.

This is a really good place, good food, great prices and great service. I love the fact they have a big selection of different salads. They also serve lamb. You’ll love the breakfast here too. 10 times better than Cracker Barrel and less expensive.

Decent portions make a good value
This is a strip mall dining location. Walking up, there are two, two tops made of metal outside that need love. There are various paper signs in the windows and on the doors and none of them caught my eye. Just inside is a small bar like structure that doubles as a hostess stand and checkout counter. They take plastic including AMEX. The décor inside is not much to brag about with nothing truly of interest to look at. The lighting must have been adequate as it did not catch my attention but clearly wasn’t fancy either. The booth was comfortable. Service seemed quite attentive although it started off a bit odd to me by the server fiving us an order ticket with the daily specials handwritten on it. When I opened the menu, I was taken aback by the ridiculous amount of food listed. As I have said and learned from many reality restaurant shows on TV and in my own travels, this is NEVER a good thing. Three out of the four of us ordered from the daily special menu. My wife and I ordered the wedding soup, chicken kabobs/​skewers with yellow rice, Greek salad, pita bread and dessert for $ 8.95 (Awesome deal). The soup was NOT Italian wedding soup as it lacked much in the way of spinach and had no meatballs at all. In its place was chicken. The flavor was decent but I would call it a fancy chicken soup. As for the entrée, the chicken was seasoned well; the vegetables on the skewers (two) were crisp and seemed fresh. The rice was cooked well and a generous portion. The salad lacked potato salad and therefore in my opinion could not truly be called a Greek salad. It did however contain 4 small Kalamata olives and the dressing was splendid. For dessert I was offered rice pudding, red jello, or tapioca, I chose the tapioca. It was a little runny but not bad. My wife chose the rice pudding which was dry and far too solid. The other entrees of tuna salad and manicotti were not bad either and contained decent portions. The tuna was surrounded on its square plate with lots of cantaloupe and melon and a few straw berries, all fresh. The manicotti seemed a bit runny and looked pretty bad but the guest seemed to like it all the same. Personally my wife and I fared much better as expected with the special of the day. This is a solid good deal especially for the price and I will be back to order the special of the day until they make the menu have 20 items or less.

What a great place! A varied menu includes American favorites along with Greek, Italian and other worldly delights.
It is hard to get past breakfast, with the crunchy french toast as an example of the creative preparation of the morning meal.
Specials are always ‘special’ and are listed on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
Several of our friends now frequent this outstanding eatery.