Awesome place!! Great menu, reasonable prices, delicious food, and staff who were friendly and attentive. The place was busy on a Saturday morning, but even with the Hobart hockey team filling up the back tables we got seated and served quickly so we could get on our way. The "Garbage Plate" and the sour dough bread french toast were phenomenal!! This place is a "must" if you're in Geneva! read more

Good local place, friendly service, good home cooking, cheap eats, had breakfast, would recommend. read more

Water St Cafe - Breakfast & Brunch Near Me - Geneva, New York

You will not be disappointed with this choice. It is an old fashioned diner with great food. I got the heron platter with eggs over easy, French toast with homemade raisin bread (substitution), home fried potatoes, and a slice of bacon. The coffee was good and it kept coming. All was delicious. French toast with homemade raisin bread should definitely be a thing. Nicki was very pleasant and attentive. Everything came out as ordered. Would definitely recommend checking this place out for breakfast. read more

Service was awesome Food was awesome They were great with food allergies Will def be back and enjoyed the outside seating read more

The menu is very traditional. Pancakes, eggs, French toast. Nothin interesting or fancy. It was ok. I had an omelette and my husband had blueberry pancakes. The pancakes were large but very heavy and dense. read more

Water St Cafe and DoorDash are a winning combination! Great menu, quality food and awesome service make home delivery easy and pleasant. Thanks, Water St Cafe!!!!!!! read more

AMAZING. Between the service and the food, everything was so great! We were in town for only two days and came back twice because it was so good! We had a little bit of a wait time on one of the days but it's totally worth it. Also worth mentioning is the price! I was surprised how great the prices were for the amount of food we got - well worth the trip for breakfast or lunch here! read more

Oh my! Driving through town on our way upstate and came across this gem. Southwest omelette was incredible as was the farmers special omelette! Huge portions and great prices! So happy to be able to write a great review and support a family owned diner. Don't miss this place! And shout out to the great service and French fries! Should have taken a picture but we gobbled up the meal so quickly. read more

Food was great- I had pancakes which are huge! Coffee was good. They got a little busy toward the end of our meal & a bit distracted- but all in all a great breakfast. Hubby had steak & eggs read more

I have eaten here before and never had an issue. Used to be one of my favorite places. Service was slow, when they did start to bring out the food, they dropped part of one of our orders off (just the pancake) without syrup. Had to wait for everyone else's breakfast at least another 5-8 minutes. Still had to wait for syrup so by the time we got it, the pancake was cold. Two of us had the hash, which comes out of a can, lacking texture and flavor. The sausage gravy hardly had any sausage, has no flavor, and is the consistency of wallpaper paste. One of the orders was supposed to have homemade toast, never got it, the waitress never returned to our table to check on us, too busy chit chatting with other customers and coworkers. read more

Conveniently located close to the HWS college campus. The food is very subpar. The service is very hit or miss, if they're busy everything you ask for will be an inconvenience. The scrambled eggs I ordered were basically a brick of egg covered in flavorless cheese, the side of sausage I ordered was not breakfast sausage but rather dinner sausage. You're better off somewhere else. read more

Great local diner, not overly pretty to look at but they serve good food. Very friendly staff with good COVID precautions taken. I had a burger (very good) and the rest of us had breakfast. Everyone was happy with their meal. All in all, a solid choice. read more

This is my absolute favorite place. The food is great, the prices are amazing, the service is great, I have no complaints. And they do delivery!!!! Water St Cafe is a godsend read more

Awesome place we stumbled upon. Packed place which is always your best sign. Great food!

Wow!!!! What a breakfast....the food and friendly staff made it a delightful experience. The oatmeal, French toast and banana pancakes were outrageous. If you are visiting Seneca Lake area, don't miss out! read more

Great food and service! The coffee was served quickly, the bacon was crispy and the over-easy eggs were nice and 'dippy'! We haven't been to this cafe since the new ownership took over..... Now we can't wait to go back. The 'house' is managed by a co-owner ....she is sweet and upbeat and at the same time extremely efficient. I watched (ok I wasn't creeping but had a perfect 'observation' seat) her guide the staff to clear, set , etc. which made for smooth table turn-over. The servers were happy and smiling! PS for the current situation: They have COVID guidelines down....so you can be assured they are taking things seriously! read more

Friendly and great place to start the day. Prices are so reasonable, esp when with fam! We went here for breakfast every day we were there. Staff is welcoming and accommodating. Will def visit again when we are there. read more

Just like Mom used to make. Had the seasonal Pumpkin pancakes and they were Dee-lish!! Friendly service and so fast! Don't miss this place as you spend time in the Finger Lakes. read more

If you are hungry eat here is all I'm saying they have amazing prices and it is delicious

Had breakfast here. Very reasonably priced and delicious. Great location in the middle of downtown Geneva.

This is the kind of diner that used to be all over America - 3 cooks behind the counter banging out eggs in the morning and club sandwiches in the afternoon. The diner is cute - very retro and buzzing with activity on a Friday mid-morning when we get there. You can see there are regulars as the waitresses are friendly and familiar with them. They are friendly with us too and we are immediately put at ease. We get out menus and coffee and tea. The menu is great and prices are reasonable for an area that is considered tourist and seasonal. After what seems like quite a while, as we watch the local banter and folks coming and going and getting waited on, we our waitress comes and gets our order. My dining partner orders breakfast as it's 11:30 and I order an egg salad sandwich on lightly toasted rye. The waitress says it comes with chips and pickles which is okay by me and I order a cup of cream of to ato soup. We ask for two waters. Our food comes out quickly. We ask again for two waters. Partner says his breakfast is great - eggs perfect, nice fluffly pancakes, yum. My order on the other hand - very different than I am used to. Runny egg salad. I've never had egg salad like this. Since we travel quite a bit, I know there are regional differences. Perhaps this is one. It is very runny - I bite into the sandwich and the egg salad runs out the other side all over my hand and the plate. It's not even mayo that makes it runny, not sure what it is. It's not bad tasting, just unusual. My soup tastes very familiar -I am sure it is Campbell's tomato soup. We have a good laugh over that as this has happened to us in another restaurant before. We were served Progresso vegetable soup in that place. Waitress comes by to fill up coffee. We ask for two waters. Another older woman comes by and asks if everything is okay. We ask for two waters. Both go back to talking to people at the counter. Our waitress brings food to the customers behind us, we remind her of our water. She immediately goes and brings them(we drank them all up). ***Our bill comes. I notice a charge for $.45 under my sandwich. I ask. They charged me for the rye bread. I say - so I ordered a sandwich but charged me for the bread it came on. Yes. They charge extra for sourdough and rye. It may be on the menu, I don't recall seeing it. I wasn't told about it either. So beware - if you order a sandwich, you may be charged for bread. Never in my life has this happened. Never in my travels anywhere has this happened! This may be the best diner in the world, but this $.45 makes them a never again in my book. read more

Heaping amounts of food. Delicious. I had the most fantastic pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes in my life. I think they only have them for the fall though...which is a tragedy. I will most definately have to go visit my brother at school out there again just to go to this lovely little diner. read more

Just when I think I have seen it all! If I could give no stars I would. Do not waste your time. We couldn't get a server!!! We had to leave. So my boyfriend and I were visiting the area for a wedding. Being from a big city we didn't know how hard it was going to be to find a breakfast place in the morning. We prefer to eat at ma and pa places and so the morning after we used yelp to find a place to eat. Two of the places we thought to scope out were not open. Bummed we just walked a bit till we saw "water st cafe" and a glorious glowing neon sign that said "open"! Smiling and excited for the hot coffee... we walked in to a bustling little dinner. It was not too crazy busy but semi busy. About 8 out of 35 or so tables were empty but they were all dirty and full of breakfast plates past. Still with rosy cheeks we waited to be seated. There was no sign up that said to seat ourselves, we searched in those first few minutes at a new place where you are unsure what to do. We had plenty of time to be sure that there was no sign! So we moved off to the side as more and more breakfast fed people filed out past us and more and more tables became empty but yet not cleaned. We continued to wait... after about five minutes the smiles started to fade from our faces and we both started to move a bit uncomfortably every time someone else left. It started to get really uncomfortable approaching eight minutes with no acknowledgment... but we were on a vacation so we stood there... We unspeakingly looked at each other and replanted our smiles and reminded ourselves of the hot coffee that sometime soon would be crossing our lips.... and waited patiently. Unfortunately these uncomfortable feelings tend to come back stronger the second time. As the smiles faded this time they were replaced by a worried, helpless look and we attempted to make eye contact with someone ANYONE... help! The servers at this point were not waiting on people, just re-organizing glasses and restocking napkins and running fresh coffee. Yet nothing... NO ONE COULD SEE US! Worried we devised a plan... after some discussion while keeping one eye out for a server to make contact... we thought that perhaps if we sat at a dirty table they would come by??? They had to! It was a good thought, we were proud. We took another second to to attempt eye contact and then springed into action. We picked the least disgusting table to go sit at... after a few minutes we realized that plan was clearly not working and we just made our situation worse... starring at someone else's left overs is... well for lack of a better word, yuckie! Enough was enough.... I got up walked over to the waitress area very directly. One one got away from me so I cornered another! Quickly she found an escape route and nearly dodged past me! Keen from my hunger and desperate for coffee... I was faster... I got in her way and asked her quickly... "how does this work?" VERY snotty she said "people seat themselves... and ran around me." To which I hollered at her back,"but all the tables are dirty!" She may or may not have rolled her eyes because she was past me at this point and had successfully evaded eye contact the ENTIRE time. She did however grab a wadded up rag... and headed ini the direction of were my boyfreind sat helplessly on the edge of the booth seat. She piled the dirty dishes on her arm with the other hand whipped the table with the free hand. Next she set the dishes on the corner of the table behind ours that was dirty as well... grabbed a stack of menus... left two and walked away with the extra menus and dirty dishes and told us that someone would be right with us. Whatever we we happy, progress was made, I looked to my boyfriend to see if he cared to share any thoughts about the cleaning process. Nope! He didn't want to mention it. He had cracked the menu and was already searching for sustenance. So I thought... okay it is clean enough, lets eat! As I sat browsing through menu all I could think of was water and coffee... I read through the menu and had made my decision, second guessed myself, and then yes, I made my decision. I set down the menu and was hoping to see someone on there way with water and coffee. I heard no one come over during the time I was looking over the menu. No water. No coffee... yet! BUT I could see the hot craft... I saw the cups... hummmm coffeeeee... I thought entranced. Again with the waiting... this time at least ten maybe 15 minutes went by at which point my boyfriend told me he was so angry he couldn't feel his face, so we counted to 15 and walked out together... what is MOST ironic is the ENTIRE time this was going on a lady was seated at a clean table reading a paper... we deduced this was the owner and or manager. She had enough brain cells to ask us quote "did you...." to which we said "no" and made our escape from the diner from hell. So my suggestion there is a Tom Horton's down the street that serves breakfast... just go there! read more

I'm a bit surprised at some of the negative reviews of this place. I'm wondering if people are maybe expecting 4-star service at what is essentially a Main St. diner. My daughter and I found ourselves in Geneva buying light bulbs on a Sunday morning. The girl at Lowe's passing out free iced coffee samples recommended the Water St. Cafe as a good breakfast spot. The place was quite full with locals and tourists, and the wait staff was moving fast in every direction. There was no sign to wait to be seated, so we confirmed with the lady behind the counter that we could sit anywhere. We each had a two-egg breakfast. Mine, my usual diner choice, was eggs over easy, sausages (it came with four non-casing links with patties as the other option), raisin bread toast (home-made and delicious), and no home fries (my choice). I don't remember what my daughter had, but it was similar. I had coffee (refilled at least once); she had tea. Everything was tasty and fresh -- nothing fancy, just a good, straightforward diner breakfast. The bill for the two of us was under $7.50 -- I don't know how they make money with prices like that! We liked the place so much that we stopped for brunch the following Sunday on our way home to Massachusetts. I had a Western omelette, she had a breakfast sandwich, and we both had Arnold Palmers (half-and-half iced tea and lemonade) for the princely sum of a little over $13. I had my home fries this time -- old style real slices and delicious. If you ever go there (and I hope you do if you find yourself in Geneva), DON'T wait for the waitress to come take your money.We watched the locals taking their bills to the cash register at the counter, so we did that too and were dealt with quickly. In short, it ain't The Ritz, but if you're in Geneva NY and want a friendly, homey place for simple, good-tasting food at great prices, this'll do it. read more

Great diner! Food was great, big menu, good prices, fast and friendly service! The homemade toast is a must. Would have gotten 5 stars if they offered to refill my coffee haha. C'mon, 1 cup is never enough! read more

The manager was completely overwhelmed and exhausted and could not handle a full house on a Sunday morning. Waited about half an hour for eggs and home fries. The eggs were bland and textureless like fast food or airline food. At least it was cheap. read more

Awesome little dinner, great breakfast food on a Saturday for two people, for abt $12. Breakfast Specials on the weekends is unheard of in Maryland. Homemade bread available in place of commercial bakery. I've had 3 cups of coffee, no grumbling from service staff, I only had to get their attention as it was really busy this early Saturday morning. If I lived here I would be here often. read more

Friendly knowledgeable service, delicious food with Gluten free options. All that and at a reasonable price. Great breakfast spot.

Simple breakfast place - Good. Had the CB Hash and eggs - which were just fine - standard offering - not homemade hash - BUT while I was ordering saw what looked like a homemade loaf of raisin bread. Asked for that as my "toast" - and am I glad I did! Delicious! Two nice, thick hand-cut slices lightly toasted and buttered. Order what you want - and when asked about toast - get the Raisin Bread - you'll be glad you did. read more

Excellent food...especially the hash browns , homemade raisin bread and sour dough toast...friendly staff...I can see why everyone I asked in Geneva told me to eat there....everything was fresh and the 85 cent coffee is a great deal as well as the fresh baked goods and daily specials! Can't wait to head back for the famous pumpkin pancakes! read more

The Water Street Cafe is a classic breakfast/lunch diner in Geneva. They offer a "garbage plate" breakfast plate that includes scrambled eggs, home fries, hash and sausage gravy. The portions were huge and the prices were very affordable. The cooks were excellent, as I learned that the staff was previously employed by Belhurst Castle. It's a great "dive" option for breakfast. read more

This Cafe would be better described as a Diner. They server breakfast and sandwiches from either booths or a long counter. I had the Fish Fry Friday sandwich and fries. The fried fish was local and quite tasty, but I ended up eating is separately from the hoagie roll. Frankly, the bread seriously hid the taste of the fish. My wife's salad was a mixture of iceburg lettuce and baby spinach, which was a nice touch given most diner salads are simply iceburg. The service was very lack luster and quite slow. We waited about 25 minutes for our sandwich and salad, which is ridiculous for a diner that was only about 25% full. Further, the server was pretty inattentive as we waited. In the end, we won't be eating there again. read more

The most bang for your buck! You look up diner in the dictionary and you will see Water Street Diner. Recently went here for breakfast. Place was packed, counter was busy. Our waitress was fantastic. My coffee stayed hot and full. I ordered the California French toast. Homemade raisin bread, thick cut, egg battered. Crispy yet soft and moist. Perfection! My boyfriend had the regular French toast with bacon. I ordered a side of corned beef hash as well. The best part? Our total bill was 17.00 bucks! read more

We really did not enjoy this place. It was parents' weekend at HWS, so it was a madhouse - that's understandable. But only one person was acting as hostess and cashier. You would think that, on a weekend when they know they are going to be super busy, they would have a little extra help on board. Despite that and being scolded for going next door for a few minutes to get out of the way while we waited for a table, service was pretty good. But the food was just OK. Nobody in our party really seemed to enjoy theirs. My farmer's omelette had a strange off taste at times, and the sausage looked sickly. We're still looking for a good place to have breakfast in Geneva. read more

We had a very good breakfast here. Definitely a local spot that is very down to earth. Tasty food and quick service.

Stopped here for the first time over the weekend after camping in the area and was delighted to find a quaint, family style diner. Our waitress was very pleasant and even joked around with our picky 4 year old. My omelet was one of the best I've ever had and my hubby was very pleased with his steak and eggs. It was a little pricier than what we're used to, but it was definitely a great breakfast! read more

LOVE THERE HOMEFRIES!! Services is ok but friendly, they definitely pay more attention to regulars than a new face. Food is good and comes out fast never been disappointed with anything I've ate there what really brings me made are there homefries they are one of the best in town! Would definitely recommend ! read more

Love the family atmosphere. Everyone is so friendly and the food is really good. Best coffee I've ever had.

What a great little find!! We went for brunch and the food was delicious! Not a ton of seating but they make up for it with their food and prices. read more

Looks a lot cuter from the outside... inside is just your typical divey diner. Menu of sandwiches, burgers, and breakfasts. Some daily specials too (eggplant, for example). Their desserts are bought from BJs, the rum cake was good. Accepts credit cards except American express. read more