Hanlon’s Cafe

My dad and I decided to meet up for breakfast before work since we both work downtown. He is definitely into the greasy spoon/​diner style of breakfast, and Hanlon’s was the right choice. At 8:00 AM, they had some regulars, but it was pretty quiet. Our food was really fast, and we both made it to work in time for our 9:00 start.
My dad ordered a Sausage, egg, and cheese muffin ($ 3.99), and I had the breakfast burrito with hashbrowns ($ 7.99). For downtown, these prices were really reasonable. My burrito was huge and packed full of cheese, peppers, ham, bacon, and sausage. The muffin sandwich was not quite as big, but my dad ate the hashbrowns and was quite content.
This is definitely more dirty-​diner style than is in right now, but our food was good. Everything was fresh off of the grill, and the staff was really pleasant. We will probably stop back in again!

This little diner was right around the corner from our hotel. Friendly staff, and great French toast (tastes just like homemade). It does get busy on Sunday, but if you’re not in a hurry, still great. We stop in this café for breakfast every time we are in Pittsburgh for a Steeler game. We will be back.

This is a great little greasy spoon diner downtown. I work downtown so I sometimes stop in here during the week and have also been in on the weekends. If you don’t want to wait an hour for brunch on the weekends, come here! Long lines for brunch are the worst when you are getting HANGRY on a Sunday morning.
I’ve had a few of their breakfast sandwiches and it’s always been a great breakfast for a reasonable price. Typical diner fare… omelettes, egg platters, pancakes… they have all of the basics. There is traditional diner counter seating and also plenty of tables as well. The kitchen staff and all of the servers that I’ve encountered are all very sweet and friendly. Worth checking out!

Staff are so friendly, service is very fast, food is delicious, prices are great.
I’ve had an omlette (which comes with toast and home fries by the way, which I opted not to get, but you can spread this across 2 meals really, which I did with the omlette so I can only imagine with the addition of toast and potatoes) and the lo carb special. The lo carb special comes with grilled veggies, which i’m sure vary based on season, bot today it was broccoli, red & green peppers, carrots and zucchini. Awesome!
Great value all around.

So nice to have a traditional diner Downtown! The staff was super friendly although they were very busy. My low-​carb eggs, bacon, and veggies did the job! Great little joint to get breakfast without having to go into the Strip District on a Sunday!

My husband and I are visiting Pittsburgh for a wedding and were in search of breakfast. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Sunday or Labor Day weekend but NOTHING is open. We walked around for 45 minutes before finding this place. It’s a total greasy spoon but we are very happy we ended up here.
The food is delicious and cheap. My husband had the mixed grill and I had a large breakfast sandwich. Both were very good. We are very glad we came here!

I go to this place every now and then for breakfast. They have just about all of the traditional breakfast options. Nothing fancy at all. You get fast service at an affordable price. I usually get eggs, and I’ve never had any complaints with the meal. Only negative is that the ventilation isn’t very good, so you sort of smell like a frier after your meal. But still a good value for downtown.

Very greasy and unorganized. Food was terrible, especially the deep fried hash browns… the oil tasted days old… will not return.

Great breakfast menu and good coffee and service, not the newest looking place but the food is very good and the price is nice. It’s what I would call a «greasy spoon» but in a nice way in which you can find in any town that caters to locals. When I’m staying at one of the downtown Pittsburgh hotels and feeling hungry, Hanlon’s is a first choice for breakfast. I’ve never had bad meal, their lunch based on the menu looks very promising. I recommend to my friends when ever they are looking for a good breakfast joint.

I’m in downtown Pittsburgh for the weekend and looking for Sunday Morning breakfast. There is not a lot of options near us but Unilocal has pointed us to a nearby café… that was closed. Just a few doors down, Hanlon’s Café was open and doing a brisk business. As we entered, there were a few tables open, but all of them had piles of dirty dishes on them. No worries, someone would surely be by soon to clear the table! We probably waited 5 – 6 minutes before someone took the dishes away. Additionally, the waitress who took the dishes away asked if they were our dishes. Several other tables were seated and their orders were promptly taken. Then someone bothered to give us menus and take a drink order.
Fast forward 30 minutes later and no one in our area has received their food — including the people who ordered ahead of us. Finally a waitress shows up with plates of food. Sadly not our food. Upon conferring with another waitress they announce that no one bothered to put the table number on the order tickets. Another waitress stops by with another few plates, also not our food. She stops back by and asks what we ordered. One could say she took our order again. About 10 minutes later, she arrives with paper plates filled with what we almost ordered. And we still got our food before the other people who ordered before us.
So we ate. I had 2 eggs, sausage, hash browns, and pancakes. [I was hungry.] My friend has two eggs toast and home fries. The food was just plain bad. The «hash browns» were from the frozen food section and deep fried. The eggs and pancakes were cold. That sausage was low quality links. My friend’s food was slightly better, but not much.
As we were paying our bill at the counter, someone sent their food back because it was cold and bad. The person in front of me said their party didn’t receive part of their order.
To add insult to injury, the place was filthy. The people clearing dishes spilled food and liquids everywhere. The seating area should be power washed. And my favorite, along one of the diagonal rafters was a rat poison station. It was unclear to us how rats could get up there but that’s where the bait station was.
Next time I’m looking for Sunday breakfast in downtown Pittsburgh, I will not be anywhere near Hanlon;s.

Ugh. Understaffed and overwhelmed. The place was packed on a late Sunday morning, and the staff couldn’t keep up with clearing the tables, ran out of dishes, couldn’t get the orders correct, and couldn’t deliver the right orders to the right tables. I watched 2 tables get up and leave in frustration while we were there, which unfortunately led to even more confusion because no one on staff had any idea which tickets to cook and which to ignore. They twice brought us the wrong food before finally just coming back and asking «What did you order?» When our orders finally somehow arrived, both were cold and overcooked, and only 1 was correct.
The only thing missing was Gordon Ramsey yelling at the staff. Avoid.

Great food, slow service. My best friend and I came in and waited at the booth not too far from the door. We waited there for 10 minutes before deciding to move over to the booth by the register. We then sat there and waited an additional 15 minutes. Still no service. It wasn’t until Allison, a really nice employee that was in the back, came to the front and walked by us. She took our order and came back with out food 15 minutes later. She was the only one out of the 4 other employees that walked by us over, and over, and over again to take our order. FINALLY! The food it still pretty good, but our to-​go order was all fail. They didn’t leave any napkins or plastic utencils in our to go bag.

Worst service ever. I’m from out of town and decided to try something local. Server yells at us as we walk in that she doesn’t have room for us and doesn’t have the time to clean off a table for us. Finally a different server gets us a spot. Waited 15 to get a drink order and another 10 to get drinks and place food order food took 40 minutes to get. Trying to pay they clumped myself we with 3 other different people. Then got rude when we tried to explain what happened and yelled at us. Don’t eat here

I ordered a side of sausage links and the waitress told me there were five served with each order. Only four were on the plate when it arrived. I asked why and was told that the other waitress who took the order was wrong. They’re Jones sausages-​small that is. Bring me another stupid sausage otherwise I leave disappointed. I should have sung ‘more Parks sausages mom, please’ although it didn’t seem at the time that it would have helped.
Where’s the beef? It’s in the rating.

*** Update ***
I had lunch at Hanlon’s Café today hoping to up my previous two star rating of it from a prior visit. Unfortunately my first visit was not an anomaly.
I took a seat at the counter and while sitting there and going over the menu I couldn’t help but notice, directly in front of me, about twenty pounds of unpeeled red potatoes. I decided on the Hot Turkey Sandwich which comes as turkey between «stuffing bread» covered in gravy and a choice of potatoes. My original potato choice would have been mashed but I was told that there wasn’t any mashed potatoes today… a statement that I found to be a bit strange seeing all those unpeeled potatoes right in front of me. No worries, I thought, I’ll just go with the home-​fries. A little later there was a plate in front of me. To my surprise the turkey was actually «real turkey»; dry as sand, but real turkey. That was as good as it got. The «stuffing bread» was a processed breading mixture cut into squares to resemble a slice of bread. It was pretty awful tasting. Disappointingly the home fries were not home fries at all but rather frozen hash-​browns that were deep fried. I ate most of the turkey and some of the stuffing bread and hash-​browns, beings that I was hungry, but I certainly wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it.
All in all the meal was pretty pathetic. But the service with a «splash of attitude» from the waitress was enough to convince me that I will probably not dine at Hanlon’s again.
*** Previous Review ***
Had lunch a Mahoney’s yesterday so today I decided to go just a few doors down the street and try Hamlin’s Café.
Hamlin’s is your classic looking café, with booths lining the wall and the center and a counter in front of the griddles with stools. There are black and white photos of Pittsburgh past adorning the wall.
The waitress greeted me promptly with a menu and asked what I’d like to drink. I was happy to hear that they have raspberry ice tea. She went for my drink and was back just as soon as I was ready to place my order. I selected the hot meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a side of stuffed pepper soup.
My soup can out within minutes and it was truly delicious! A very heartily serving of soup with ground beef, rice and chunks of tomato. I thought, «If this is what I have to look forward to for the meatloaf, my review of this place is going to be sellers!» Unfortunately when the main course arrived I became quickly disappointed.
At first glance it looked wonderful all smothered in gravy. But then I looked under the bread and found a burnt, skimpy helping of meatloaf in pieces. The best part of the dish was the bread (very fresh) and gravy. The meatloaf was dry and over salted and the mash potatoes were average at best.
When my bill came to the amount of $ 13.80 (plus tip) I did feel a bit taken. But due to the service. I will come back and give Hanlon’s a second chance. The soup was delicious, the service was good and I noticed what other people had on their plates and it appeared to be pretty good. The wraps looked good and so did the breakfast dish the two fellas in front of me got for lunch. I’m giving it a strong two stars for now based on the burnt meatloaf and plan on coming back hoping I can give Hanlon’s a better second review… the wait staff deserves better.

The newspaper review posted at the entrance says that sometimes a diner is just a diner, and that seems to be what Hanlon’s aspires to, but not a very good one.
Went for Sunday breakfast on a recent trip with the family, and found that most of the food lacked flavor. The sausage breakfast burrito lacked any punch, the home fries were soggy and bland. Even my 8 year old said the raisin French toast lacked flavor.
On the plus side, the prices were extremely reasonable. Breakfast for 4 under $ 20.

Ok I guess… Ate there this morning about 8:45. Sat down, was acknowledged with a nod and be with you in a minute… but was closer to 7 or 8. Ordered «the handful» which has 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, potatoes, and 2 bacon. Wanted to trade bacon for veggies but was told it would be $ 1 more even though on side items, the bacon cost more than the veggies… go figure. Make the customer happy and he’ll come back tomorrow, don’t and he won’t.
It was decent, can’t complain too much, but can’t give thumbs up either.

Great little greasy spoon. Fast service and great food. Exactly what you need to get your day going.

The coffee was delicious, served in a mug, NOT a paper cup, like one of the other reviewers complained. No city is a real city unless it has an independently owned low budget greasy spoon diner like this place. You can have your Perkins, your Denny’s, your Pannekukin, Starbucks, McDonald’s, or whatever chain you call it, but, for me, a breakfast at one of these diners is the real deal!

Hanlon’s is a little diner right in the middle of Liberty ave and very easy to miss. I generally stop in here when I am looking for a cheaper place but pretty decent food. My issue in previous stops was the ventilation was bad and AC didn’t keep up with the heat of the grills you can see from your booth. Also, lets face it, most of us would prefer to go back to work not smelling like a French fry.
Ok, lets stay positive! The service is always good and again the price is right. I have had several items on the menu and I went with a Sicilian melt this time around. As usual, the food is served hot and ready to roll. The portions aren’t enormous but they do the job. You can get out of here cost wise in under $ 10 if you skip the soft drink. I have had a turkey club, salads, burger, chicken fingers basket… just don’t expect anything incredible in here.
I do think its a decent stop and very easy to fit in a lunch hour at work.