A common complaint at Sill's Cafe has nothing to with the quality and quantity of the food.
Rather, it involves wanting the cozy, old-style eatery to expand.During breakfast hours - especially on weekends - there's usually a line to get in.
Layton's famed "Restaurant Row" with its big-name chain restaurants such as Tony Roma's, Applebee's, the Cracker Barrel, Red Robin and others, has put some longtime city eating establishments out of business and has caused others to change their menus or facilities to keep up.
But Sill's, Layton's oldest restaurant, continues to do what it did when it started back in 1954 - offer homemade food, lots of it, in a neighborly atmosphere.
Indeed, walking into Sill's, located at the extreme south end of the city's historic Main Street, is like entering one of those small restaurants in southern Utah that seems forever stuck in the 1960s or 1970s.
"We do everything from scratch. Homemade," owner/manager John Sill said. "We try to keep it personal."
Sure, Sill said, he could expand the building to handle the more than 76 patrons sitting down and additional 10 waiting patiently in the doorway, but that would change the character and atmosphere of the place.
"It wouldn't be the same," he said.
This is one of those cafes that still has a section of bar stools and where waitresses know the first names of many customers.
It officially opens at 5 a.m. every day except Sunday. That day, it opens at 6 a.m.
Farmers, cowboys, construction workers, truckers, businessmen, families and high school students all come here. Customers from Salt Lake City to Idaho are common.
The atmosphere is relaxed. People don't worry so much about getting in and out quickly. The cafe is in a more calm part of town and it shows.
Why do customers love it?
"I think it's a very nice place," Len Goodman of Kaysville said. "They have very good service."
He's been going there to breakfast for many years and loves their scones that drip with honey butter. And Sill's bacon and eggs aren't too bad either, Goodman said.
Danny Evans of Layton is another veteran Sill's customer.
He favors the place because it opens so early in the morning.
"They let me in by 4 a.m.," he said, explaining he has to be to work early.
He said by 5 a.m. the place can be full. "They have real good food, too."
About the only other place Evans eats at is across the street at Doug and Emmy's, another diner co-owned by John Sill's sister, Emmy. Its menu is similar to Sill's Cafe's.
Layton's newest restaurants don't excite him, Evans said. He said he only goes to them when it's a late dinner and his two favorite diners are already closed.
Sill's father, Golden Sill Sr., had a home moved in and then built the cafe next door to it 44 years ago. He operated the business for about three decades, until another son, Kim, took it over from 1985 to 1993.
John Sill has operated it ever since.
There have been a few times the cafe has been leased out to others, but it has always remained under ownership of a Sill.
There are plenty of nostalgic family photographs and newspaper clippings on the wall of the diner.
Another thing you're likely to notice is the size of the sweet rolls and scones. The scones are 8 inches across and the sweet rolls are larger at almost a foot.
The cafe specializes in breakfast. That attracts a large crowd.
Lunchtime is almost as busy, but dinner business falls off. "Other places do affect us for dinner, but that's all," Sill said.
Some selections on the breakfast menu are named after regular customers who kept ordering the same thing.
For example, there's "Dale's breakfast" - two slices of bacon, one egg, hash browns and a scone and there's "Matt's breakfast," - one scrambled egg with cheese, hash browns with gravy and wheat toast.
Dale May is a Layton police officer. Matt Curry is a brother-in-law of Sill.
Then there's the "Boss's Breakfast" - four slices of bacon, two scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns and a scone. It's what his brother Kim Sill, who used to operate the cafe, regularly ate.
Plenty of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and pancakes fill the breakfast plates.
For lunch, the cafe employs 15 people and offers hot beef, hamburgers and hamburger steak - with plenty of potatoes, gravy or fries. Dinner is the same.
When he took over the cafe, John Sill said he was worried about the influx of newer restaurants in the city hurting his business.
But today, he said, you could probably open another Sill's Cafe and still not keep up with the demand.
Sill said he once believed his and his sister's cafe across Main Street wouldn't both survive. But they're now both thriving.
Layton community and economic development director Scott Carter said Sill's loyal following has kept it going.
"It's a favorite of truckers. . . . Everybody loves their good old sweet rolls and scones."
Comments on the size of the uncommonly large scones, $1.05 apiece, are common at Sill's.
"We like to fill up the plate," John Sill said simply. "People like to get what they pay for."