Area residents have a new place to go for breakfast and lunch, following the official opening of Ralph’s Corner Diner in Hatfield Township.
Located on the Applebee’s side of the shopping center, the new 84-seat diner boasts a robust menu of breakfast and lunch items, created by Executive Chef Michael Refaat, of Harleysville. Refaat said the location is the fourth restaurant he has owned and operated across his 22-years in the restaurant industry.
“I’ve worked in restaurants since I was 16 years old, starting out as a dishwasher and working my way up to executive chef,” said Refaat.
The diner essentially had it’s soft-opening at 6 a.m. on Nov. 11, and it has been scaling up ever since, with word-of-mouth spreading across the community. Refaat said the scaling up is by design, as he wanted a chance to work out any kinks or issues with operations if they surfaced.
“That Monday, I just turned on the ‘open’ sign, and that was it,” said Refaat. “We didn’t want to draw to much attention initially.”
Refaat's prior locations were usually open 24 hours, or 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. at a minimum, but he said those hours lead to burnout, so he wants to solely focus on being open for and providing a quality breakfast and lunch option for the community.
Our Experience
We went to Ralph’s Corner Diner for breakfast on Saturday, Nov. 16, and we were surprised by the length of the wait, as Refaat had made no effort to advertise or announce their opening, yet there was dozens of people in front of us trying to get a seat.
After about a 35-40 minute wait, we were seated, and met our very friendly server who took our order. In total, we ordered a meat-based omelet and a veggie omelet, along with sides of scrapple, French toast, home-fries and a few other things to sample.
Despite the initial wait, which we hope is addressed as the staff finds their footing, the quality of the food was pretty impressive, both in taste and in portion. There is no question that the food was made expertly and with care, so we would definitely recommend it, though initially maybe at an off-peak time to avoid the wait.
(Conflict notice: North Penn Now was not compensated to write this article, but we were provided with a compensated breakfast for review purposes. Though our experience and thoughts are genuine, we are ethically bound to acknowledge any potential or perceived conflicts of interest.)
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