The Mercury Diner Lands in the Former Crest Parsons

There’s a new diner in town, folks! The Mercury Diner will celebrate its grand opening on Thursday, Nov. 17. Located at 621 Parsons Ave., it’s the latest venture from A&R Creative restaurant group, and it replaces their former Crest Parsons location.

The space has been redone to resemble a retro diner with modern touches, complete with a big, rectangular counter looking towards the kitchen and a fun interstellar theme.

Red velvet booths near the windows offer bigger tables for groups.

We appreciated that the menu is focused around a few breakfast dishes, a half dozen sandwiches, a couple salads, fries and a la carte items, desserts, and beverages.

As expected, it features diner classics like breakfast sandwiches, steak and eggs, biscuits and gravy, grilled cheese, patty melts, burgers.

Coffee is supplied by Brioso Coffee, and is available as a bottomless hot mug or a smooth cold brew.

In addition to coffee, the beverage menu encompasses cocktails, floats, shakes, sodas, draft and canned beers, and wines.

On our sneak preview visit, we ordered a couple coffees and a mix of donut holes, fries, breakfast, and a sandwich.

The Spaceballs are dense French toast donut holes dusted with powdered sugar and served with strawberry sauce and vanilla pudding dip. The pudding brought back a lot of childhood memories for both of us.

The Big Bang combines all your favorite things: a soft and buttery split biscuit, zesty sausage gravy topped with shredded cheese, sunny side up eggs, seasoned home fries, and your choice of maple sausage or bacon. I choose the maple sausage patty – again, it brings back strong childhood memories.

Beth ordered the salmon salad melt, layering a deli-style salmon salad with havarti, lettuce, dill, and a fresno sambal on a brioche bun. It was a real highlight of the meal. And again – it hearkened back to the ham salads and similar deli items she remembered from her youth.

The disco fries arrive in a small cast iron pan: crispy fries topped with gravy, white cheddar, and chives. The description put us in the mind of poutine, but the dish isn’t quite that. The white gravy and cheddar are mixed together, so it’s more like a dense sauce covering the fries with a very light sprinkling of chives.