Nancy’s Home Cooking

Picture the perfect local diner: small but not cramped, friendly atmosphere, walls covered in memorabilia, and great, inexpensive food… that’s Nancy’s.
The omelettes and sausage gravy are top notch, but if it’s not crowded, don’t be afraid to ask about off-​menu items.

Very disappointed in the service! We are in from out of town and not regulars. We watched our waitress move orders for regular customers ahead of hours. In addition she was rude and unpleasant. All we can think of is that we didn’t have OSU colors on but rather different colors supporting a competitors team. Still not a reason to be treated so poorly.

Very good food! Small hole in the wall feel but great food. Can’t go wiping with the omelets here !

I am so very much in love with this place.
I’m a big brunch person, so when a friend suggested that we try this place out, I was all for it. She’d never been either, but had heard nothing but good things about this restaurant.
It’s a cute little hole in the wall that still kind of makes you feel like you’re in the 60s, which is when they started. The décor is mostly red, black, and grey in support of the Buckeyes.
I had their breakfast sandwich with eggs, sausage, and Swiss cheese– on a Belgian waffle with their home fries, which are chopped up and delicious greasy potatoes that, in my opinion don’t even need ketchup.
The sandwich– oh God, I’d go back for another one right now if I could, but I’d like to have an appetite in the near future. It was so delicious and filling that I wasn’t entirely sure if I could finish it. I rallied soon enough, and finished my plate.
When the weather gets better, this may be one of those places that I’ll walk to for some good eats on a weekend morning.

I want to give this place five stars sooo bad. My only downfall was the syrup that I was given in my to go order. It was runny and didn’t absorb into my pancakes the way I expected. But lets start from the beginning, I saw nancys at work via the app on my phone. Decided to take a trip. it was a small quaint little hole in the wall establishment with a waffle house feel on the inside, but A LOT!!! smaller. the cooks are right there. I enjoyed the service very nice and friendly a lot of different people although its pretty much a college shop. The food was amazing I got the garbage omelet and three pancakes. The omelet was huge and amazing very fresh and tasteful. The pancakes were light and fluffy and had great flavor. The hashbrowns were really burnt and I mean to the point that if it wasn’t for my cheese I would have been eating burnt potato skins. Overall great establishment and i’ll be back though.

Nancy’s is a unique breakfast spot that I’ve come to love over the past few months. It should be said that Nancy’s is not a place to bring a group of friends for brunch and cocktails. It is a small diner that has classic breakfast food. Try to limit the number of people you have in your party because the restaurant is small. I wouldn’t come here with more than 4 people *maximum* — the smaller your party, the less time you will wait.
The service here has always been friendly and attentive. My coffee is always full and my food comes out fast. The servers are willing to help you find a seat and make sure the wait is as short as possible.
The food is always solid. Where else can you go to get a huge pancake and a side of home fries for $ 3.65? The home fries are my favorite — I could eat a whole plate and be happy. They are buttery, perfectly tender inside, and crispy on the outside. YUM. The pancakes and breakfast sandwiches are also great picks.
I’ve heard that it can get really busy, but I’ve never waited more than 15 minutes. It is fun to come here on a Saturday morning before an OSU football game!

Always delicious, always super homely and hospitable, always absurdly cheap. Come for the dirt cheap waffle sandwiches, stay for the friendly staff and customers (with whom you’ll likely share counter space).

This place is absolutely awesome. The service and the food is beyond awesome. they even have a pay it forward board for people who can’t afford food like homeless folks so they can have free food which is homemade and absolutely delicious.
I would highly recommend this restaurant to anybody who wants a good sized portion at a reasonable rates and yummy homemade food. The staff is awesome.

Great place to eat. Large servings and the price is right. You can pick one item off of the menu and two people can share it.

I’ve heard that Nancy’s gets pretty crowded on the weekends, but it was fairly empty when my husband and I popped in mid-​morning on a week day. It’s a small location, so I can see how it would fill up pretty quickly. Also, most of the tables are pretty small, so I wouldn’t recommend showing up with a large group.
The servers were very welcoming and attentive. It seemed like there were quite a few regulars coming through while we were there, and the servers knew them quite well. All of the food was delicious, but my favorite thing was the home fries. I’m sure they were cooked in the most unhealthy manner possible, haha, but they were delicious. We’ll definitely be returning.

The popularity of this place is simply baffling. Ok, I’ll grant it, the prices are really cheap, and I guess if the choice is between this and Denny’s, I’ll go here. But at that point, why don’t I just stay home?
The service is very friendly and the atmosphere is cozy, which must be part of the selling point. You can converse with the cooks and the servers, which is charming and makes this feel more intimate.
However, restaurants must ultimately stand or fall based on the food that they serve, and the food here is bad. Two out of the three times I’ve eaten here, I’ve been ill afterwards. One of those was from eating the special of the day (meatloaf), which I guess was special because it sent me sprinting towards the nearest toilet. Even when it didn’t make me sick, it wasn’t any kind of special food. I can get a hamburger and french fries just about anywhere and I can cook scrambled eggs that won’t make my stomach churn afterward.

What can I say about Nancy’s that has not already been said? I have been coming here sine 2005 and not much has changed. I love their food, love the specials that rotate and love the owners/​people that work there.
If you love home cooking, miss it, don’t get it like mom used to make than you need to go to Nancy’s and get that home cooked meal feeling back.
Also they do a few dishes that add bourbon to chicken, beer to onion rings, Bailey’s to waffles… yeah… it is heaven on a plate.

It’s been quite awhile since I had a meal at Nancy’s. The tiny location has always turned me off from the drive, since I’m not a huge fan of waiting. Well, we took a big gamble this past Sunday in bringing four of us to dine in, but somehow we managed to slip in at just the right time and got ourselves a booth without waiting. Well, at least we didn’t wait at the front, but it did take a bit of time for our server to come over and take our drink order.
As far as traditional diners go, Nancy’s is up there as one the best in Columbus in my opinion. You get fairly large portions, and everything is super cheap. I went with a breakfast sandwich with home fries and a full portion of biscuits and sausage gravy to split with my girlfriend. The server said it was going to be too much food on top of the breakfast sandwich and fries. It was pretty big, but that thing was gone before the sandwich even hit the table. Don’t underestimate me, lady! They were delicious, especially the biscuits.
The sandwich was great as well, and I love the thick bacon they use. I could have eaten a plate of that too myself. The home fries are decent, but I think they could have used a bit more seasoning. My buddy enjoyed his eggs and bacon and biscuits as well, and his girlfriend loved the blueberry pancake. Be warned: those are some large pancakes.
So is the gamble of a wait worth the food? I would have to say so, but be prepared to sit pretty close with a stranger. If you don’t mind that, you’ll have a great time, especially being able to watch the cook at work right in front of you. Our server was very nice too, and there were quite a few regulars in there she knew by name. Parking’s on the street, and you really shouldn’t have trouble getting a spot, unless it’s a game day and then you might. Overall, Nancy’s has been around forever, and you should at least try it once if you’re living in Columbus!

This place is the quintessential greasy spoon diner! Why I didn’t write this review earlier about Nancy’s is simply beyond me. The omelets are huge and awesome! I highly recommend the «Better than Frank’s» sauce. It definitely lives up to its name.
The first time I visited this place, my waitress asked me if it was my first time there. I replied that she was correct. She made a big announcement that I was a newbie to my embarrassment and surprise. At least I was cool about it when she said that they do this for all first timers.

We love Nancys and consider it a small victory when we can score table without having to wait. The restaurant is small but cozy and seems to have remain unchanged for the past 20 years that I’ve been coming here. I always get some type of omelet with a side of bacon for breakfast. Hubby loves the Philly Cheesesteak omelet. But the superstar is always the bacon! I don’t know how they do it but they have the BEST. BACON. EVER. Their coffee and service are great too. You must try Nancys!

I would highly recommend this place to anyone. The greatest food I have ever eaten and the people there are friendly and very helpful. I would recommend the Sloppy Watkins to very delicious and filling.

I am pretty sure writing this is a sin against Clintonville, but sorry I have to.
MEH. I’ve experienced better. The place is tiny and run down, the service is unreliable and slow, and the food did not impress me. It had a very «waffle house» quality to it, and that is not a good thing. I might try lunch someday, but not very soon.

They had pancakes with bacon in them. Let me repeat that… the pancakes were made with bacon inside of them! It was absolutely delicious! My friend had the garbage omelet, which was delicious too (we did a prisoner exchange of a bite a piece). The only things that keep me from giving four stars are the seating (there isn’t much) and the amount of time it took to get our food.
We waited maybe 20 minutes to get a seat, which isn’t bad, but it was a pretty lazy random Saturday morning with not too much going on. I did find it cool that a group of 2 ahead of us was invited to sit with a random group of 2 who was already seated at a table of 4, just so they wouldn’t have to wait. What a cool way to meet people if you’re open to that. There might be seating for 30 people in the entire restaurant. Not entirely their fault; it’s an old building and there’s not a lot you can do about it, but plan accordingly.
What I really hated though was it took nearly 10 minutes after we were seated to place our order, even though we had already looked at the menu and knew what we wanted to order. After that it took almost 45 minutes more for our food to come out. Once it did, it was piping hot and magically delicious.

I would actually say about 3.5 stars for here.
The place is definitely small, kind of run down looking. It fills up really fast. Luckily we were able to get there before it got too busy.
Server was really nice, and it was definitely fun watching all the cooking happen. It is all slightly cramped and we happened to be sitting by the busing station, so the servers and buser and cooks were all squeezing by on a fairly frequent basis.
My husband got the chicken and noodles special, I got the fried fish with chips. Both were incredibly tasty and fresh. My big issue — everything was pretty greasy. I get that’s it’s home cooking and they don’t hold back, but all that grease wasn’t so much my cup of tea.
I would definitely come back sometime, the food is definitely worth it, but I would make sure the visits were far apart.

Been meaning to stop here for a long time, but its early hours keep night owls like me away. We happened to be nearby and decided to drop in.
As soon as I saw sausage gravy and biscuits (on another diner’s plate, didn’t even look for them on the menu) I had to have them. And oh, were they good. Good enough biscuits, great gravy with lots of sausage. Sweetie had a Philly steak sandwich, which she really liked. I had a bit– done right, with lots of garlic. I also had corn nuggets, which were very good.
It’s a tiny place, so I’m glad we went at an off time. Service was good. I’ll try to find a way to get back during their hours.

We were excited to try some «home cooking» for breakfast on a Saturday morning. We decided to give Nancy’s a try.
First, we were fortunate enough to walk in when there was 1 single booth remaining. The place is, as others have noted, extremely small. There was a sign on our booth alerting us to the fact that they may ask tables of less than 3 to share a booth. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
It took a while for who we thought was our waitress to come over. My boyfriend got water to drink and I got hot tea. By the time we got our drinks we had then had a while to think and told our waitress that we were ready to order as well. She said «oh, I’m not your waitress, someone will be over shortly.»
When our waiter did finally come (and to be fair, I think there might only be the one) he was very friendly and outgoing. He checked on us relatively frequently, offered me more hot water for my tea (after I’d already exhausted the 2 cups they gave me), etc.
I ordered the French toast on whole wheat (probably a weird request but they honored it) and my boyfriend got the Philly cheese steak breakfast burrito. It took probably 30 – 40 minutes to get our food. Once it was there, though, it was pretty good. The breakfast burrito reigned supreme, I’d say!
Overall, not bad. The wait time was a lot longer than we would have liked, but that may be because we aren’t regulars and the establishment is clearly family-​run, which I can respect. The food was good and the service, once we got it, was too. We may be back — I’d definitely get the breakfast burrito next time.