The Lakeview Restaurant Review

I always sit where Tom Cruise sat in the movie Cocktail.

Ok selection of food, but being open 24 hours makes up for jt.

This 24hr diner has a large selection of menu items to choose from.Fast service,great food,large portions.

Atmosphere is very welcoming, and has a nice old school vibe to it. Food is decent but extremely overpriced, you could honestly eat almost anywhere else with these prices and get way better food.

Had a great time at the Lakeview! Came here for brunch for my bachelorette. The food was delicious, the Caesars were great! Our server Hayley was wonderful, great service, very kind, and has a wonderful playlist she plays in the restaurant. Definitely a vintage dinner feel, we enjoyed it!

Great value, generally ideal for vegetarian diets but can make exceptions. Open 24 7 too. Interior feels like it's straight outta the forties but in a good way. Definitely worth a trip if you like fried food and cheap deals

Terrific Service. Good lunch crowd. Fun, Friendly, Family-oriented Atmosphere.
I really enjoyed the attention the wait staff provided to my lunch-time companion and I. She greeted us promptly when we were seated, then refilled my coffee (good stuff!) without my having to look around for her.
The food was nicely presented and quite tasty. I liked that we were able to choose both salad & fries as side dishes to a very hearty sandwich.
I had the Poppa Cap (2x deep fried portabella mushrooms on a bun - vegematerian heaven), while my erstwhile dining companion had the Tuna Melt. Both quite good
My first time at the Lakeview, definitely not my last. Well Done

I used to love this place. Perfect haven for my late night burger cravings. But tonight I went and we waited over 45 minutes for a server. When I finally got his attention he complained I was taking to long (when I was not at all) and walked away. We left streight away.

History alone dictates that you must go here. Try to count all the movies you've seen that were filmed here. Also the actual restaurant is great.

I came here for Sunday brunch. Service was friendly, but the food took incredibly long to come. Dining room and washrooms were pretty dimly lit, if that kind of thing bothers you. I had the chicken and waffles benedict. The chicken was pretty flavourless and the waffle was too thin. The daily craft beer pint special is a great deal at $4.25 though. I'd come back to try their other food items.

Meh, this place really needs a revamp. Nowadays its just appreciated by the hipster crowd reminiscing about experiences they never lived in the first place.

I had high hope, after reading about it on blogs for late night food and study spots. Wasn't impressed, you have to be very assertive to get any assistance, food was cooked in oil that really needed to be replaced. Had a chicken burger that was cooked in dirty oil that it look like a beef burger, fries were horrible, and made us both sick by the time we got home. If you good to the washroom, Don't Touch Anything! We visiting in the morning.

Love the daily special! Always creative and delicious!!

I had high expectations due to friends' recommendations. I went for the Eggs Benedict. I'm on a bit of a quest to find the best Eggs Benny (for me) and was a bit disappointed. They were not bad at all, don't get me wrong, they were good but I've had better. I will say this though, I've been to this place before for lunch and was not disappointed so this rating is based solely on my opinion of the Eggs Benny.

Ordered vegan gravy poutine and my friend ordered regular beef gravy. They didn't mark the poutine cups and I ended up eating the beef one :( (I said I was vegetarian!)

Great late night hangout. Got the fries, thick cut! Got the happy sundae.. boy was I happy I did. Family got key lime pie, onion rings and apple pie milkshake. Yes, you heard. Its apple pie, thrown in a blender with vanilla ice cream. Sooo good!!

Great food. Love the all day breakfast. They even have this amazing arctic monkeys poster on display

The Lakeview is a charming little hole-in-the-wall bar and restaurant that serves simple but great food. They have a $4 special on pints of beer, which is about as cheap as you'll find the stuff in Toronto, especially in the hipster bars clustered around Dundas and Ossington. This place is definitely worth stopping in if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.

As long as I can remember, the Lakeview has offered friendly service in a true old old diner atmosphere. While the menu has definitely moved forward with the times, you'll still find the kind of old school milkshake that you used to think was relegated to nostalgia.

I worked late - service was friendly & my burger was perfect :)

Great place to hang out. Good ambiance. Cheap Caesars and fantastic milkshakes. Food is a hit or miss but I'm very happy to have this place opened 24/7. Avoid after club/bar closing hours.

Vegan poutine was great! Mushroom gravy tasted smoky and flavorful.

A perfectly mediocre diner experience. I've been to Lakeviews a few times and each time it's been a sort of late night experience. The environment is, cozy at best. slightly cramped at worst. Since I've never gone at rush hour it always feel unnecessarily close to me but I imagine if there are tons of people I might be better able to appreciate the interior design selections.

The menu is fairly pedestrian but their milk shakes are good and generous. The poutine is fairly good. Their all day breakfast options could use some work though. As someone who doesn't really eat eggs there's not a whole lot for me to choose from. If however you 're the sort of person who does love a good egg. You're gonna find something in there that satisfies you.

The big bonus of this place is that it is one of very few in Toronto where you can have dinner late on Monday night. BUT: french fries seemed like it was cooked days ago, then frozen, then microwaved. Soggy - yuk! Coleslaw had such a terrible aftertaste that I felt like washing my mouth at the auto wash. Beer was good and cheap (2 bucks per pint!).

Nice place. I enjoyed my meat sandwich. Great selection of craft beers.

You don't need a man-bun, a useless PhD, and a beard to enjoy the delicious eggs bene here. I mean, I had all of those things, but I still had a great time.

The restaurant looks almost like it did 40 years ago, minus the juke boxes, and the milkshake makers, and the atmosphere and the food.
We are always disappointed when our memories are changed by the new reality..
All in all its an old looking restaurant with new fangled foods.
Just don't expect to find out the way it was.
Worth a look if you like new age food and service.
No handicap bathrooms, seating, or doors.
Slower than usual service.
Polite though.
Visited with a diabetic elderly woman who had been here for the first time 70 years ago.
She was feeling nostalgic. Didn't get her fresh milkshake.
She did get plenty of eyes on her for her age as well as her need to take insulin prior to eating.
The waiter did insult her by stating that the shoreline must have been at the doorstep when she visited.
Not sure if he was intentionally being mean, but I'm thing too guess yes.

Great milkshakes and putine. My favourites are the Lakeview Putine and the mint chocolate chip milkshake.
The only downside is that I have given two chances to this place and both times it takes 1h to get our food.
Once it gets to your table the experience is great...

Stumbled across this place after the bars and it was exactly what we needed after a night out! Food was good, service was good, and would go again for late night eats.

I've been coming here on and off since 2010 and I'm never disappointed with the good staff there. I prefer going late nights to avoid the insane crowds at times lol but otherwise this place is lovely. Food is always delicious:)

Thursday night 10:30 pm....waited 15 minutes to have the waitress come and ask us if we re ready....what do you think? Ordered 2 milkshakes and after another 20 minutes we can see them on the bar and the waitress keeps walking by them. We got up and left. What a joke! The milkshakes didn t bring the boys to the yard....she was like the credit card I was going to use, she carried a low rate of interest.

Worst drunk food I've eaten in years. Cheese curds in the poutine were cold.

WHAT HAPPENED? I used to love this place. The service and the food quality has declined greatly over the last year. Last two times I visited, the order was incorrect but the server never returned. How do you screw up a burger and fries?

I have been coming here for over 20 years. No more. Staff unimaginably rude and grossly incompetent. Can t even greet people or maintain a wait list. Dirty food left all over the place.Must have been a recent change in ownership. To bad.

2017-11 - I had heard good things about The Lakeview Restaurant but was disappointed by my visit. It was Brunch time on a Sunday however it seemed that staff were overwhelmed with the attendance of patrons. The food did not seem to be prepared with the attention I would have expected given the reputation with scrambled eggs that were rubbery. The breakfast sausage was well prepared band tasty as were the potato wedges which were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The baked beans were not worth the $2.25 extra.

Overall, not a good value for the price but am willing to try again at a different time to see if it was just an off day.

Great food, reasonable prices. Always available when you need it.

This place hasn't changed since it was opened. Food was okay. Worth a try.

Sometimes its crowded but being open late and having diner favourites like steak and eggs for a reasonable price, you can't go wrong. I'm in the area for business occasionally and it was nice to find a place that wasn't stuck up and elitist like most of the places on ossington.

Super cute vibtage diner and tasty food, wide selection. I've been here many times after the bar, say 2am and the place is packed, a long line to get. Almost a club in its own right.but I came here a couple days ago, a Saturday around 1pm with my partner and there were empty tables though we still weren't greeted promptly. Service was terrible, took forever to get a table/place order/etc. Other tables that arrived after us were served their food before us. After 40 mins and minimal communication from our server we just settled our bill and left without any food. Frustrating.

Great little diner. Lots of choices on the menu, all day breakfast as well.
*Try the tuna melt and disco fries!

Meh. Decent drink deals and on par food. The best part about this place is the hours. Open 24hr kinda nice for this neighbourhood

Three stars for being open all the time and being consistent. Food is ok. Burger is not great.

Good food, good beer, good history. Washroom is cramped and has graffiti. Unpleasant odour in restaurant.

I got a Philly and fries. My partner had the cornflake chicken sandwich. Certainly not a culinary masterpiece, but it was greasy in all the right ways and came with a $4 pint of oatmeal stout.

Service was great, staff was really friendly. The food was really filling. I had one of the breakfast poutine and I couldnt finish it.

Honestly the best place for breakfast west of Yonge! I highly recommend the Chicken and waffles eggs benny. Weekends, be prepared to wait! Just a testament to how great the food and atmosphere is!!

went here with my girlfriend and we had to wait for our food for over 20 min only to get the wrong order! There were three guys sitting close to us that didn t even get to order and ended up leaving.. spend your money elsewhere. The food was alright though if you re seriously considering this spot.

Food is good and decently priced. My friends and I hit this place up after catching a movie at the Scotiabank theatre. Good atmosphere and good service.

Great food all night, I used to work here and loved it!

Loved this place great food, service and coffee. I had the salmon eggs Benny and the hollandaise is freshly made. Can't wait to go back again.

Open 24 hours, the Lakeview is a Toronto institution. You haven't really spent time in the city until you've been there on a busy Saturday night at 3am, waiting in line with the rest of the post-bar crowd to take your turn at a table in the dim light and indulge in the comprehensive menu. Also there is beer (until 2am) and sweet potato poutine.

This place is disgusting, I went there with my mom for breakfast and we literally saw TWO LIVE MICE running around the dining area. At this point we had just gotten coffee and waiting for our food, but we were so grossed out we told the waiter (who was pretty unbothered by the mice) and as we were leaving he wanted to charge us for the coffee.. um no i am not paying for coffee that im not drinking. EW

It's open 24/7. The apple pie is great. A bit drafty and the bathroom was filthy which doesn't inspire confidence...

Very friendly waitress. Restaurant decor could use a touch up. Food was great

Such delicious food. Always busy, always great. Go here!

Good 24hrs food , kitchen is slow during rush times but worth the wait.

At first look at website interesting menu and restaurant that has been around since 30's. Its due for an upgrade. It was a bit dark and hot (no a/c). Had the big breakfast and you received a lot. I felt the aftermath at home. It was either very greasy (old oil) or just not fresh. A little disappointed but would try other items on menu.

In my opinion, this place is awful! Bad food and bad service. Ordered chicken strips for my child and got cold flattened breaded chicken, not to mention over priced for what we were served. If I wanted food like what is being served at this place, would have gone to the store and bought frozen dinners. After the food came, our waiter NEVER came back to see if we needed anything. Even had to ask for the check, even though it was obvious we were ready to leave. Oh, but the waiter was there to get his tip. We won't be back! So disappointing

Came in at around 1130pm for late night eats. Took a few minutes to be seated but no big deal. Had a philly cheese steak w sweet potato fries. Food was fairly quick and tastes good. Servers were friendly. Bathroom in this place was messy small and cramped. Overall place was pretty decent for a quick bite. Would def visit again.

Lovely north-american design environment, nice staff, great option to eat breakfast anytime. It s open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Try Ossington Massive . It s huge and delicious.

Great food and service , i always make my way here to eat when I'm in the area (yum)

Good late night spot. Service at times leaves something to be desired.

I have a great experience every time at The Lakeview. Good service, friendly staff and reasonably priced food. It's open 24 hours but expect a wait during peak times such as Sunday brunch. The freedom toast was exceptional.

July 2018 Update: lowered to 1 star. This place is terrible. Don t order anything deep fried I don t think they have ever changed their oil. Also, we waited over an hour for our food and our server wasn t giving us accurate estimates on when our food would arrive. This place is mediocre at best. In the future I will avoid it.

Old review:
Decent for late-night good. Especially if you re drunk. Food won t blow you away, but it s consistent. Service is efficient.

Food is stable and reminds you of the (better) diners of yesteryear, or diners certainly otherwise outside downtown Toronto.

Great food that's open late. The menu is quite eclectic, I really enjoyed the cornflake chicken sandwich. There's normally a lineup on weekends past 11pm.

Really loud, always packed, and no air conditioning. Decent diner fare with fast, efficient service.

The old fashioned decor and home style menu are the best parts. The Shape of Water was filmed here.

Why I gave 4 stars: we came at a slow time (3pm) and they had guys changing the lightbulbs including the one directly above our table while we were still eating. Not an appropriate time in my opinion.

Fantastic staff, great menu and prices. The choices were great and loved the look of the place. A must visit. Enjoyed a slice of pie with some coffee.

Cannot wait to come back late one evening and sample their menu.

Great place... open 24hrs... it gets pretty busy on weekends so be prepared to wait. Plus $4 cesars!

Very nice restaurant. The food is very good and the service is very friendly.
The menu is well structured and also includes one or two gags.
It gets a star deduction for the toilet, which needs to be restored again. Otherwise very nice and definitely worth a visit!

Unfortunately I had a terrible experience here. My first time at this restaurant & it could well be my last as the male waiter seemed very careless, impatient & angry. My friend was not happy with how her burger patty was cooked as it was pink in the middle throughout the whole patty. They then told her that's how their burgers are and couldn't do anything about it. The server was so rude that it led to another table of diners getting up and leaving just after they had ordered. The rudeness was uncalled for & I doubt it was an accurate representation of how this restaurant works although first impressions do count the most.