Mars Food

I’ve been coming to Mars on College for my entire life. My mother went to U of T and she got breakfast here regularly, and 30 years later, so do I. I’m giving it 5 stars, but there are some things you need to know when you go to Mars:
1) Mars is a diner. It is for breakfast foods. There are non-​breakfast foods on the menu — do not be fooled! You should not buy a hamburger here, and you should definitely not buy a steak here. This is a place where you can get eggs, pancakes, french toast, corned beef hash, and perhaps a sandwich of some type (BLT?) but I wouldn’t stretch it much beyond that. Order breakfast, regardless of time of day.
2) To be more precise, Mars is a greasy spoon. Come here with an appetite for greasy food. This is not a place to eat healthy. The ingredients are not local or organic. The coffee is not fair trade. The maple syrup is not real. This is not how your mom would cook. The food is bad for you and it is delicious.
3) If you require service, go and get it. Serving staff will leave you in peace until you bother them. Mars doesn’t really have «service» — go ask the server if you need something and they’ll get it for you.
4) Having said all that, Mars is great and I hope it never closes. It is cheap, it is ludicrously fast (I don’t think 5 minutes have ever lapsed between ordering and first bite in the 20 years I’ve been coming here) and it is consistent. Nothing has changed at Mars on College since it opened in 1951 — certainly not any of the décor. Sit at the counter and watch the cook make your food. He’s been there several decades and knows exactly how long each of the pancake, bacon, toast and egg will take to cook on his flattop and will start them all in sequence so they finish all at once. It’s fun. Order the corned beef hash — you won’t regret it.

Perfect place for a casual bite. Don’t come here for an extravagant experience, come for a hunger fix. Service is overally chill so come when u have time to kill. It’s a classic greasy spoon. You get huge portions for an incredibly reasonable price. My only thing is the coffee isn’t bottomless and usually these types of place are classic for that. You do that one free refill and they let me take it to go which was decent of them. It is standard brew, nothing fancy so I personally think it should be atleast unl. Refills.

One Star for the service, I cannot give any good feedback on the food, sorry. I had a burger. Fries are bad, steak are made with bleach, bread is cheap and vegetables remain vegetables.
And it will cost you as much as a good Burger.
You better be drunk and starved to go there.

The service was lovely. The meal was decent. The food poisoning that followed… not so much. A late night meal cost me a whole day. Never returning.

Flawless beauty from Red. Zebra print décor. And cheap, simple breakfast. And it’s right next to Nirvana and sneaks so that’s sayin summin.

Not a bad little diner. Perfect location and nice diner look, it felt like an old timey diner. You can see the cook cooking everything about a foot away from you which is guy. The cook is an older guy, super friendly. It was pretty full when I got in but the food still came in minutes it was pretty sweet. Menu is nice and prices are pretty good compared to most breakfast places.
I had pancakes, French toast, bacon and an egg. It was a small portion but filling enough. Food was all pretty standard but the pancakes were a bit undercooked.
Service was quick and friendly but the servers weren’t very talkative.
All in all it was cheap, pretty tasty and quick. A very nice quick bite kinda place.

They changed management and the food is a million times better. it’s the best greasy spoon in Toronto!

After many of years of having brunch at Mars every Sunday I have decided to take my business elsewhere. My favourite meal was the Corned Beef Hash, which they have now screwed up. The portion is smaller, but somehow the price increased. The new management has added fine dining menu items not fit for a diner. This, in fact, slows down their once upon a time-​very fast service. The pancake syrup is no longer real and the soup has to be brought up from the basement and heated in the microwave.
Further, I do not think this place is sanitary. I have seen roaches on the wall near the food prep area as well as on the bar. I have never seen the gentleman wash his hands after handling cash.
Hopefully, Mars does a turn around and goes back to its old ways.
Also, shout outs to Mars for posting a fake review under the name of Maddi N.

This place is the definition of 50’s style greasy spoon, the décor, the booth’s the cramped pace with the stools at the counter really define it.
The food is pretty good considering the type of place it is, this place always provides VERY fast service, and a decent breakfast. Don’t expect anything fancy here.
The homefries are really good, the servings are ample and the quality is good considering the type of place it is. The coffee however is pretty awful lol.
It’s a high volume place because of it’s lightening fast service too so if you want a place to sit around and chat after your meal, or if you want better presentation and décor, then you may want to look elsewhere. This again is a classic Family run 50’s style diner so don’t expect anything mind blowing here, just cheap, fast food here.
Edit: I have learned that the service, quality and cleanliness here has suffered greatly since the new owners took over this summer, so approach with caution lol

Seems to have had a change of management. Didn’t see the elderly gentleman who was always there cooking and the lady who worked the cash.
The menu has been updated and the price increased by a small percentage. However, meals now come with fresh fruit (on my last visit, orange slices and pineapple). The food is still cooked the same way, so no complaints.
The waitress seemed new and a little overwhelmed. She forgot water for our table and the table beside us even though the diner was only ¹⁄₃ full (~5 seated tables). However, she was polite and came around to ask us if our food was all right.

Uniquement pour celles et ceux qui ont une méchante gueule de bois et qui né se soucient guère de leur taux de cholestérol par un dimanche matin.

2.5 stars.
Came here after the wait at nearby Aunties and Uncles was about to drive me berserk. I was ravenously hungry, tired, annoyed at the system in the previous establishment and drained after a shockingly long TTC streetcar journey. Almost anything would have sufficed.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a more than adequate greasy spoon diner. The portions are big, the prices are cheap, the menu is quite diverse for the type of place it is. The food itself is fine.
I had the Mars Platter. French toast, a pancake, fruit, and eggs done any style. ‘Twas nice, nothing was the freshest (except the coffee, yay!) but I enjoyed my meal nonetheless. It sufficed in quelling my hunger and improving my mood.
The service was bizarre. Our waitress seemed completely out of it. She didn’t seem to understand what we were ordering even when we pointed to the menu. Lots of minor mistakes were made, and then we had to wait fifteen minutes for our change to be brought to us. We eventually walked up to the till and requested our change from the waitress who was very flustered by our request. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume this was a genuine error and she wasn’t trying to pocket a 45% tip…
This place is fine but I wouldn’t go out of my way to return. There are better greasy spoons in Toronto — try Jim’s Restaurant in Leslieville!

I have eaten at Mars on occasion because very few places in this town do all-​day breakfast, but always knew it was kind of low-​quality food and I would never take another person there.
However, I just ate there today again for the first time in a year and WOW it has dramatically improved. The new sandwich section is a HUGE improvement over what was there before.
I had the steak sandwich, and was pleasantly surprised to find it on a homemade foccacia bun. The only bread I’ve ever seen there before was white or brown from No Frills. It was seasoned with horseradish mustard, sauteed veggies, and was a great sandwich all-​around. The other lunch choice was a turkey club and I saw it being delivered to a table; it looked awesome.
Best of all I got the 50% off lunch special so it was only $ 5.50 + tax. What?! What has happened at Mars, I wonder. The girl who rang me up said they are trying to improve the menu (for what I am sure is the first time in 20 years.)
So if you have written off Mars, give it another shot. The interior is still kind of gross (think American luncheonette with none of the charm) but I hope this is the start of a turnaround so they can echo the rapid changes on College St. while still keeping the same low prices.

I love this place. Fast service, great food that you can watch being made. Adorable ambience. That old school diner feel

I have been to the Mars at Yonge and Eglinton many years ago for brunch, but this was my first time at the location — supposedly the original Mars.
This is your classic greasy spoon diner and certainly looks the part. However, it does not have the dirty /​grimy feel that you may typically associate with a diner. It has bar seating along the left side where you can clearly see the cooks preparing your meal fresh to order and there are tables along the right hand side with a few booths at the back.
I arrived around 11:45, and while the restaurant was not packed, it was certainly busy and I was told to seat myself.
The menu is quite broad with all of your typical greasy spoon /​diner options, and they seem quite willing to accommodate any special requests. I like that you can ask for pretty much anything on the side, for example a single pancake or a single slice of French toast — no problem!
I ordered a fresh fruit plate with a side of rye toast and my friend ordered a more typical diner meal of eggs over easy with home fries, toast, bacon, and an order of French toast on the side. The fresh fruit plate consisted of a sliced banana, a few orange slices, a chopped gala apple, and some grapes. The grapes weren’t the freshest, but I was still satisfied.
Service was fairly bare because there was only one waitress serving the entire place, but she was very pleasant and was happy to answer any questions we had. They forgot to give my friend maple syrup for his French toast, and when we asked for it she apologized and brought it right away.
Overall I would return, but wouldn’t necessarily make a special trip to go here.

I genuinely liked this place at first. I went in during a time that wasn’t so busy and really got a feel for the atmosphere and the food. The quality of the food was standard for a breakfast place; I can say that it was nothing special. The décor was old and had a very run down feel to it, not necessarily a retro feel, more like an overused VCR. Yet there was something about this place that I liked. The cooks genuinely knew what they were doing with the techniques they used and the way the food was handled; like a skilled barber.
Then today I went in hoping to get something quick during my hour lunch. I waked in and found a handful of people eating their meals. The moment I walked in I could hear a harsh tone and pungent voice speaking to the cook: «you have to do things quicker» & «Stop messing up the order». I casually sat down and the same person that was talking to the cook approached me with a completely changed demeanor. For the next 30 minutes I witnessed this women, who turned out to own the restaurant, speak to her staff in the most heart retching, derogatory manner. This cook brushed off her comments with charm and pose; he would just whistle and cook the food diplomatically.
Customer service is not just the immediate interaction with paying customers. I personally believe the way staff are treated make a world of a difference in the success of the business. I can understand that serving people may be a very challenging line of work but if this person can talk to her staff, in front of customers, the way she did then there is no way I will be eating here anymore.

A classic! Don’t expect anything fancy, like shade grown, fair trade pour over coffee, or cage free eggs and 7 grain bread; but if you like Diners and great food at a fair price, squeeze into a 2 top along the East wall, order a bottle of Molson, and dig into perfectly cooked bacon and the best home fries around.
Fast Food the way it’s meant to be: with the emphasis on Food!

Hangover heaven!
Mars Food knows why you’re there at noon on Saturday. They know you’re hungover as hell, and they want to make you feel better.
I called in advance to make sure they had a table for us, and once we got there it was ready. It’s such a charming older place — it looks like it hasn’t been changed at all since the 50s when it opened.
As soon as we were seated, two giant pitchers of ice water appeared for us. I ordered off the basic breakfast menu — 2 eggs, bacon, home fries and toast. It was around $ 5.50, and while nothing special, it was exactly what I needed.
A few in our group ordered poutine, and it was made with real cheese curds! The milkshakes also looked divine.
The only things to note are that:
A) Their coffee kind of sucks and it is not included with the breakfast — adds about $ 1.50 to your bill.
B) Jam doesn’t come with your toast. I was too busy eating to ask for it, but it seems like something that would have cost extra.
Definitely worth hitting up to get you out of hangover hell!

Maybe the greasiest breakfast I’ve had in the city. Rivals Vesta lunch on Dupont for atmosphere.
Long row of diner stools against the bar, and maybe 8 tables /​booths in the place.
For about $ 8 you can have a really weighted breakfast — pancake, sausages, bacon, homefries, egg, and coffee. The food isn’t amazing or even that good — but no denying the charm of this place. The avg staff age is aprx 72.
Right across from Sneaky Dee’s (and open 24hrs on the weekend) — it’s a good spot to grab weekend brunch when you’re hungover and don’t want to wait in line… because there won’t be one.
I guess that means I’ll be back.

I liked the fact that Mars, the «Muffin King since 1951,» remains a College Street staple and serves a perfectly fine breakfast. But apart from this, I thought it was pretty unremarkable.
Yeah, the breakfast was fine, standard and inexpensive. It’s always good to know a spot where that can be depended upon. I like the fact thet they still have those 1930s milkshake blenders. But othewise, you know, meh.
No, wait. There was one remarkable thing. The length of time I had to wait for my check.

My first trip here was to have a free lunch with Pluto, a Canadian indie band from 1996.
We ate on the record company’s dime and royally pigged out, capping our fast food platters with lots of shakes and coconut cream pie. Delicious. In fact, I have fonder memories of the food than the actual lunch date with this band — which makes sense, given which of the two has actually stood the test of time.
I still return to Mars and respect its old-​school diner feel and its just as old-​school dining staff — something that’s difficult to keep in tact, especially in this district.
Their cheeseburger, fries, and gravy meal gives me a particular sense of nostalgia that I can’t seem to find elsewhere, and their breakfasts are good and hearty, too. Greasy, greasy, good.
Beats the Mars Diner — Uptown any day.