Review: I ate at the Palace Diner, the oldest restaurant in Maine

I recently visited the nearly 100-year-old Palace Diner in Biddeford, Maine.
I waited over an hour for a seat at the restaurant’s 15-seat counter, but I found it was worth it.
However, I had to come back the next day to try a famous menu that was already sold out before I even sat down.

On a road trip from Connecticut to Portland, Maine, I stopped at the Palace Diner.

The nearly 100-year-old restaurant is famous for two things: its classic 1920s-style railroad car interior and a chicken sandwich that people travel miles to try.

Palace Diner is one of only two Pollard-style dining cars left in the country. It was named one of Eater’s must-see restaurants in 2018, and the diner’s chefs were nominated for a James Beard Award in 2020. It even appeared in a 2022 episode of the hit Netflix series “Somebody Feed Phil,” starring Phil Rosenthal, who praised the diner’s “idealized versions of omelets, French toast, pancakes, burgers (and) sandwiches.”

The restaurant, believed to be the oldest in the state, has changed hands several times since opening as a popular hangout for local factory workers, the Portland Press Herald reported. Today it is owned by Greg Mitchell and Chad Conley, business partners who met while working on a farm in Harborside, Maine.

“We came to Biddeford on a whim and within two hours we had met all the right people,” Conley told Maine Magazine in 2015, a year after the couple bought the place.

When it came to putting together the menu, Conley said they “ate a lot of cheeseburgers” in the early days.

“Even now, the editing and creation process never stops,” he added. “We use customer feedback and take suggestions from our servers. We’re not afraid to remove or add things to the menu.”

Here’s a glimpse into the historic Palace Diner and what to order when you visit.

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