Full Fare

by Elisa Ludwig

In front of the buffet, all men are equal. No one, it seems, is immune to a good bargain or the mandate to pig out. Exhibit A: the weekend morning crowd at the Trolley Car Diner in Mt. Airy. If you're here, like everyone else in the line, to take advantage of the Saturday and Sunday $9.95 buffet ($5.95 for kids), you'll have to put your name on a list and wait for a table.

The Trolley Car Diner opened four years ago when an antique diner building was added onto a former and long-abandoned Roy Rogers, ushering in a new era of discount family dining for the cobblestone neighborhood.

The Trolley Car's breakfast/brunch buffet is served from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., but as with any all-you-can-eat situation, it only takes about 15 minutes to turn hopeful anticipation into total shame. The buffet is set up in the original building, and if you squint you can almost imagine the Fixin's Bar with its many squirting jars of condiments. On one end, there's a hot station where omelets are made to order with a small selection of filling ingredients and where a griddle turns out stacks of pancakes and puffy waffles. On the other is a section devoted to the breakfast habits of the Continent, with fresh fruit, cereal and pastries, including an oddly compelling miniature sticky bun with a maraschino cherry.

In between is an astounding array of meats: two kinds of sausage, bacon, corned beef hash, and creamed chipped beef. Southern favorites like grits, biscuits and cornmeal-battered catfish sit alongside regional items like scrapple and Dutch apple fritters and the most exotic of breakfast delicacies, French toast sticks.

If the food is mostly mediocre — gummy apple fritters, desiccated homefries, overcooked grits — well, the sheer variety goes a long way. And if you stick with some of the better offerings, you can still get ahead in the value game. (For 10 bucks, three plates of catfish, sausage and waffles is a great deal!) Isn't that what you came for, anyway?

Trolley Car Diner 7619 Germantown Ave. 215-753-1500 www.trolleycardiner.com