Hinkle's Restaurant has a history dating back to 1893! That's incredible. And you can see why it's stuck around through so many years, changes in tastes and trends, and history! Hinkle's Restaurant is an old-fashioned soda fountain and restaurant. Their menu has a little bit of everything - and so many classics: burgers and hot dogs, haddock, crab cakes, a fried oyster platter, liver and onions, sandwiches and wraps, salads, pierogis, all-day breakfast, and more. When I arrived this past Saturday for lunch, I asked for a seat the bar/counter, since I was enjoying a solo meal. The service at the counter was great - friendly, fast, helpful. I ordered the Old Fashioned Shifter ("a favorite of Pennsylvania Railroad workers; the Shifter is ham and cheese, lettuce, tomato, sweet pickle, and mayo"), fries, and a Lime Rickey. The sandwich was great - simple and delicious. The Lime Rickey wasn't my favorite - I thought it was just a bit too artificial-tasting and syrup-y (some fresh lime juice would've made a big difference). But overall, I enjoyed my meal! The restaurant itself has a lot of charm. You can see the history in the space, but its recent renovation also means that it's a very comfortable restaurant - historic but modern in the ways you want a restaurant to be, too. I enjoyed my meal here. I'd happily return! read more

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Hinkle's is little piece of Columbia history, having revamped the over 100 year old pharmacy restaurant in 2017 into a cute, retro eatery with an ice cream and soda counter. Walking into Hinkles makes you feel like you are stepping back in time. We visited on a very busy Sunday but arrived at the end of the lunch rush. Our server was friendly and communicative, having to deliver the unfortunate news that a few menu items we were interested in were all out. She did a really good job of helping us figure out what to order instead. The food was solid. I ordered a spinach salad and tater tot's. I was really impressed by the freshness of my salad and the chicken was clearly cooked to order and well seasoned. I wanted something healthy after eating out for multiple days on end, and this dish made me feel so much better. My dad went with the roast beef which he really enjoyed and kept commenting on the tenderness of the beef. My mom and brother went with the crab cakes and the hot dog-which they both finished completely and reportedly enjoyed. For dessert, my parents went with ice cream and lemon meringue pie. I didn't try the ice cream because lactose intolerance -but the bite of the pie I sampled was delicious. There is also an adjacent gift shop next to the restaurant which had tons of different gift options. They also offered us free candy for international women's day, which was a nice touch! Hinkle's is definitely worth a visit, and I'd especially recommend a visit for families- and don't skip on the dessert! read more

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Wonderful space, delicious menu choices. The staff is always friendly and attentive. This is always a pleasant experience and a great meal!

It is good food and ice cream. Can't never enjoy or go for dinner they close so early for the working people. Chicken and waffles are good they have them at night and close early. Great family place and food read more

Just a beautiful "old timey" restaurant with plenty of tables, really helpful service. The only draw back was the food wasn't that great, it was good but nothing to make you super anxious to return for. Don't get me wrong, we would return, but not for awhile. read more

Columbia's legacy, Hinkle's Restaurant, has stood the test of time since 1893. Although there is no longer a pharmacy, the restaurant, ice cream parlor, and general store/gift shop, Murphy's Mercantile, are still going strong. Hickle's offers an extensive menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My spinach blueberry dalaf with chicken was fresh and delicious. Hinkle's has friendly, excellent service and offers a lovely dining experience in a quaint historic venue. Free parking is provided behind Hinkle's. read more

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Food , service, and historical significance. It does help that my wife has on her famous workout outfit with her new hightop puma's. read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Ice cream bar - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

You're running a scam disguised as a restaurant. Charging exorbitant prices for what is clearly microwaved, pre-packaged food is shameful. I ordered the shrimp stir fry expecting something fresh, only to be served tiny frozen shrimp and vegetables straight out of a store-bought bag. Nothing about it tasted fresh, and certainly nothing justified the price. The service was just as disappointing--no warmth, no effort to engage, not even the courtesy of asking if I wanted dessert. It felt more like a cafeteria transaction than a dining experience. What really bothered me was seeing that most of your customers were elderly. To charge that much for subpar, reheated meals while offering so little in return feels like outright exploitation. Do better--for your customers, your reputation, and the integrity of the business you're pretending to run. read more

Took my mom there for mothers day breakfast. Totally yummy all the way around, with large portions. Service was very good and friendly!

Took my 5 year old granddaughter for breakfast. The wait time to be waited on until the bill was served was a practice in patience. The waitress seemed to be oblivious to us and certainly not attentive to us her customers... at least not us. Had to ask twice for things. No coffee refills. Food was ok. This is a rest. that will be low on the list to go to. read more

This is our new favorite restaurant. The Restaurant , Soda Fountain , and Mercantile are a great place to eat and shop. Very unique gifts. We stopped for lunch and my Wife always orders Breakfast. Eggs over easy, crispy Bacon, Home Fries and she loves their Toast . The Bread tastes like it's freshly baked and butter on both sides. My wife has called me a "Dirty Dawg" , so that's what I ordered; " The Dirty Dog". A grilled Hot Dog on a toasted roll, covered with fresh onions, peppers, bacon and beer mustard with a side or of battered Fries and a Pickle Spear. Delicious! You must try this place! They have great daily specials. I'm tickled they have a sandwich named after me. lol - Tim and Judy (Julie R was an excellent Server and all the other Staff who made this trip worthwhile) Don't forget to sign up for the Rewards Program. read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - The Dirty Dog with battered Fries and Dill Spear - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

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Always good food and service. Pricing is about the same as others. Seating is ample. Parking is sometimes a concern although we can usually get in the lot. read more

Bland food nice atmosphere -whatever you order food is incredibly bland. Imagine a less flavorful version of Panera or Applebee's. Positives -unique Americana feel inside. -waitresses, incredibly friendly and efficient, not their fault the food is mediocre -extremely clean everything from the floor to the bathrooms are immaculate. -prices for sit down restaurant are not bad. Summary. Go once to experience the atmosphere of turn-of-the-century pharmacy. Service is charming, incredibly clean. The major downside of the food. Whatever you ordered all taste more less the same. Very mediocre very bland food. As others have noted, seems like the majority of customers here are seniors, which probably will tell you everything you need to know about the food. read more

Hinkle's is a busy restaurant in Downtown Columbia. They do have a decent size parking lot; however, if it is full, there is plenty of street parking nearby. We came on Sunday October 6th at about 10:30am. Even though we initially came for breakfast, we ended up ordering lunch. We were seated very quickly, in this pretty large but busy restaurant. The service was quick, efficient and friendly. The prices are very, very reasonable here and the portions are large. We had to take some of it home. I had the opportunity to try one of the lunch specials, which I thought was a fantastic value. I had the Baked Sausage with filling and then it came with two sides. I picked the mashed potatoes and the corn fritters. Everything was delicious! I would definitely return again to this restaurant. read more

You know you enjoy your meal when it reminds you of your mother's cooking. Have only been there once. Had chicken and waffles. PA Dutch style the picked chicken in gravy on top of waffles. Was delicious. Definitely one of the best waffles I have eaten. It was light, fluffy and tasty. You also received a large amount of the chicken. Got ice cream for dessert from their old fashion soda bar. Can't wait to go again. read more

ALWAYS a treat when we pass through or return to our home region, Hinkle's well-established restaurant continues to sparkle in its new decor (with just a few bits of tarnish in the process.) Food was fair...not exceptional. Mac and cheese and stewed tomatoes were fine. But for the rest: old fashioned standards were not in evidence and some food sat in the serving window much too long. (Check the gravy on my meatloaf photo....very heavily skimmed over. Naughty not nice!). Pot Pie was thick and very flavorful; that is...thick to a fault. Likely sat too long in the broth and 2 of our guests found it much too chewy. Malted milk shake had a decent flavor BUT the malt powder was not blended in and hung in dry clumps to the side of both my glass and the metal stirring cup in which it was prepped and brought to the table. Cherry Ice Cream soda was not even close to the original that we've enjoyed for the past 60 years. In fact, I had to show the soda-jerk (no disrespect) a photo of what it was supposed to look like...even though the menu description did a fairly decent job of that. AND no cherry on top - even after correcting. (Better training definitely needed.) The fried corn fritters were grossly undercooked...please don't serve raw batter to your guests. (Again see my photo.) Service was sub-par and food was delivered to our table of 7 friends for lunch in fits and spurts. We'll most likely return (especially having come here for so many, many years)....but 2 stars have fallen from their original crown of 5. Servers were somewhat "scattered" albeit polite when they did show up. read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Gift shop - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

Sat at the bar. Food and service was top notch. Central location. Parking is metered if their lot is full read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Cheeseburger - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

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We have now gone 3 times, I wanted to make sure I was giving a fair review. Food is awesome, great variety!!! Service is EXTREMELY slow. We have gone 2x for breakfast and once for dinner! Waitress takes extremely long time to come to our table for our order! In all 3 occasions we have never been asked if we wanted a refill! We had to flag down our waitress for refill, napkin, box or our check. Not good business there! Ask your customers if they want a refill, that's standard. The restaurant was not crazy busy when we got there each time, only wait maybe 2 minutes for a table! No excuse to not come ask us if we want refills, not have to flag down our waitress for a drink, box or our check. read more

The last 2 Sundays, the young women greeting customers need a lot of training. Very rude telling people about their wait time.

A true diner experience in a quaint small town. The gift shop attached has unique gifts for all ages and the ice cream bar is a blast from the past. read more

Wow, what a neat place. It's a diner, ice-cream parlor; there's a gift shop inside, homemade chocolate eggs near the register - my eyes are darting everywhere. My inner kid is screaming, "Yay." Yes, I am excited. The menu is extensive, but I zero in on my standard favorites: chocolate chip pancake, with the Two Eggs homefries, toast and meat. Yeah, I kinda felt like this was an extravagant choice - wishing there was a menu item, platter that had all of those items listed, but there was not. I agree with the majority of reviewers, the service was kinda slow - but, I was with friends and we were happily chatting. When my pancake arrived, I didn't see any chips. I gave our waitress a frowny face, she told me that they were there. Boy oh boy, were they ever!! Dessert for breakfast, why not. Yum, bite, yum, chocolate, yum, bite and over to my requested, fried hard scrapple. Scrapple was perfectly crisp, thin, a tad greasy - oh yeah and yum. Homefries were the Real thing - real potatoes, not from a can, not from a bag in your freezer, but real. My egg was cooked perfectly and the buttered rye toast on this side, ahmazing. IHOP, you know I love you - right, but but.. come on now, you can share the breakfast spotlight with Hinkles. read more

Ordered the hot beef with fries but asked for a hamburger patty instead of the sliced beef. They were happy to make it but charged the full price of the hot beef then added $3 for the hamburger patty even though they removed the sliced beef. The chipped beef was large and tasted ok but has an unusual smokey taste. The dried beef definitely needs to be cooked longer and a little crisper. Nice clean place and the service was good. read more

Tried to go here on Saturday Oct 11, 2025. They don't know how to run a restaurant. It took 20 minutes to seat us. It wasn't busy at all and there were plenty of open seats all over the place. The host was slow in doing anything. She could not do more than one thing at a time. When we finally got seated, we waited another 10 minutes before somebody asked us about drinks yet we saw 2 parties seated after us already had drinks and ordered. We left at this point. It looks like maybe they slow down service right around near the end time of early bird specials so you can't order them. Stay away. read more

As a regular at hinkles( at least 6x a month) this last trip was pathetic..prices are way up portions are way down..I would be ashamed to serve such a small amount. Was so small literally laughed out loud. Won't be back.......service was good as usual so nothing against the staff. read more

Service was on point! Atmosphere very casual Prices reasonable, food is outstanding! read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

Took a friend who ordered their 'fresh plump"strawberry salad. When it came it was defrosted mushy mixed berries with so much juice it wilted the greens. The manager said they started using them because they couldn't keep the strawberries long before molding. They would not take it off the bill. Will never go back! read more

I wanted to love this place because the interior is so cool and retro. Sadly, our waitress was inattentive and didn't ask us if we needed refills or anything. She didn't ask if our food was okay because I would have told her it wasn't. I ordered a Turkey club and it came out as a chicken salad sandwich. By the time she came back I said forget it I'll just eat it. Then she disappeared again after we finished so we just went up to the register to ask for our check. The chicken salad was okay, it had a lot of Mayo on it. Also beware if you order the chicken and waffles. It's the PA Dutch version with shredded chicken and gravy over a soggy waffle. read more

This place seems popular with the locals and for good reason. Great value for your money. The service was slow to start. After ordering our drinks, the waitress took about 15-20 minutes to come and take our orders. However, once the orders were in, the food was ready less than 8 minutes. I ordered the 2 eggs, homefries, and toast for $4.95. That's the cheapest breakfast I've ever had. Totally worth your money! The desserts looked promising too, but I didn't get to try any. read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - 2 eggs (anystyle), home fries, choice of toast - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

I see that most of the reviews of this place are glowing and I believe that a lot of people like it because they are usually busy. I have been coming here for 3 years since moving to the area. No more. The past few times I've been disappointed by the food and this last time was the worst. I ordered a tuna melt open faced on rye. First, the rye was more like wheat bread. No rye taste. Maybe 1 1/2 TB of tuna salad was on the bread. I'm not exaggerating. That's all there was! And since I saw no cheese (an important part of a melt), I mentioned it to the waitress who asked the cook. He said it was under the tuna. Nuh uh. The fries were limp and greasy. The best part of the meal was the take out milkshake I ordered because I was hungry after this "meal". It's a shame. I think people go there because of their reputation but it has definitely gone way downhill. There are far better real diners around. The staff are are exceptional. Very friendly and accomodating. Too bad. read more

Flash back in time when life was easier. Friendly staff, beautifully decorated, and artistically tasteful. Croquettes we're homemade an staffing taste like grandmas. I had a taste of my husbands..ok, ok...more then just a" taste. It's good I had to sneak a few more bites. He asked for a side salad, since you get 2 with that meal and I was as big as mine. I got this very modern salad with chicken, walnuts, mandarin oranges, spinach, and apples. Fresh and delicious. The got a coke with a splash of cherry..like old times for a real cherry coke taste. I got the salad so I could have cake afterwards. Banana cake (homemade thick goodness) with Peanut butter icing. OhLaLa!! I had to cut in half it was so rich and huge. My hubby had coconut cream meringue. He loved it. They have counters, booths and tables here. This is a must visit if you want charm and tasty food. They have an old ice cream counter too. Great to bring the kids, grandparents and parents. Stop by their old candy store and gift store. Cute! read more

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Great place to stop for traditional dinner at the local diner. Military friendly, great service! Stopped off for some baked chicken pie and asparagus and of course I couldn't skip dessert had to have a slice of that pumpkin cheesecake - yummy. Competition take notes, the men's room was immaculately clean! read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Pumpkin cheesecake - yummy - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

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Brought my dad here for Father's Day breakfast. Surprised by the room inside as you wouldn't know from the outside. And the accessible ramp is a plus. Busy but seated immediately. Wait staff busy but didn't wait too long. Good and plenty on the plate. read more

Food is all good. If you like Brussel Sprouts there's are different and delicious. Food is like down home cooking. Nothing fancy, just good. The also have a great ice cream bar. Nice little gift shop in back eith unique gifts read more

Not our first time there, we usually go for breakfast, but we got dinner there tonight. I got the liver and onions and my husband got the ham steak. We both enjoyed our food. The liver was so tender it cut with a fork, and the gravy was thick and rich and there was so much that I had leftovers for lunch the next day. read more

Excellent food with a bright and impressive atmosphere in a well-established historic restaurant and ice cream parlor. They had a nice selection of food to fit any taste and also a large selection of soda shop and ice cream items. read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - 6 ounce New York strip with fried shrimp and a crab cake. - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

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This was a nice looking restaurant inside, diner vibes with a kind of exquisite feel. Came here for a quick lunch on the way to the Turkey Hill experience with family, a party of 4 with one child. We were seated right away in the back, a nice comfortable spot for us and were asked about our drink order within a few minutes by a member of the staff. A few minutes later, the drinks came out and we met our waitress who took our appetizer order that consisted of the cheese curds (on special) and the Hinkle's fries with jalapeños on the side. Both were super tasty, especially the marinara sauce that came with the fries, I ended up putting some on the Hinkle's fries for a little bit of a twist on the fries. I ordered the four cheese grilled cheese along with another in my party and opted to go with the side of chips but could have upgraded to fries if I wanted. Another person in my party ordered the sausage and cheese omelette which was very tasty and rye toast. Overall we had a good experience, one thing I'd say in terms of the service was that overall it was good, however we did have to ask for our drinks to be refilled a few times. Definitely a good place to visit in the Columbia area and I look forward to coming back. read more

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Awesome place. It has history in its restaurant not to mention their cream and soda bar and gift shop. Coming from a metropolitan Washington DC, it was refreshing to slow down, enjoy great food from friendly staff. Prices are also great btw read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Hinkle's - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

The restaurant is super cute, i love the ice cream bar, food is good but sadly the service can be better. I would of done 5 stars but our server's service can be better. read more

Took a chance on this one. Assumed it would be a tourist trap from the photos. Pleasantly surprised to be greeted, served and fed with a heaping of old fashioned, down-home charm. The warm experience continued when we checked out the attached store and bakery. Sad we were far from home and can't eat there every week! read more

Hinkle's Restaurant - Chicken and dumplings! Incredibly flavorful and huge! - New American Near Me - Columbia, Pennsylvania

We stopped in here after running some errands and were pleasantly surprised. We caught them at breakfast time and overall the service lacked nothing and was attentive. Eggs and bacon were good and beverage never got low and I never had to ask. The ambiance was probably the nicest I have ever seen when getting breakfast. Love the mid to the past and the connecting gift shop is great to gist especially if you have kids. read more