Where have all the diners gone, damnit!

The BBQ Pit
1

A new diner opened in our neighborhood today, so the Weird-North family went there for diner to check it out. I was disgusted by what we found.

Right off the bat, let me say that when I eat at a diner, I expect a diner, if you know what I mean. The tables should have coffee cups on them when you enter the restaurant. Booths should (but it’s not 100% mandatory) have individual stations where you can scan the tunes on the juke and play songs that nobody has heard since 1958. The waitress should be an older lady named “Maude” or “Gertie” or “Flo” who wears her hear in an impossibly coffered 'do and calls you “hon”, bonus points if she’s got an unfiltered Pall Mall smoldering in the corner of her mouth. The menu should be a laminated, printed front and back with menu items that are heavy on fried foods. Nothing should cost more than $8.95. Entree choices should be things like liver and onions, chicken fried anything, ham with biscuits and red eye gravy. Breakfast should be available 24/7, with all breakfast dishes including hash browns. These meals should be cooked by a fat guy called “Cookie”, and the food should taste like Jesus himself is expected any moment for dinner and they’ve given you his meal because he’s just a few minutes late and they want to make his food fresh. Desert should be an indecently large slab of pie, and as one staggers out of the place, stuffed to the gills, the waitress should call after you in a voice thickened by 50 years of cigarettes but friendly all the same “Y’all come back soon, hear?” In other words, a diner should be the Bel Loc, see the Barry Levinson movie of the same name for more details on this fantastic slice of Americana.
What, pray tell, did we get? Well the decor was right. It looked like a railroad car (albeit considerably larger than any real RR car ever made). The booths had stations for the juke, although ours was a glitzy thing with a computer touch screen that was just jarringly out of place for a “diner”. No coffee cups on the tables (nor were we offered any coffee at any time during our visit-scandalous!), but the waitress was friendly, if a lot younger than should be working in a diner. The trouble started when our menus arrived. Each one of them was about ten pages thick. Gone was the simplicity that diners stand for, and in it’s place stood a horrifying mish mash of cuisine from around the globe. One page touted Greek specialtys, another Italian. The Entrees section was broken up into Poultry (at a real diner “poultry” gets you: “That mean chicken, hon?”), Beef, Seafood (!) and believe it or not, Veal. Prices ranged from $12 to over $20. Anytime I look at a menu and see choices like “pan-seared salmon dusted with cumin and paprika” or “Pork tenderloin medallions, dried cherries, Marsala, pine nuts, braised cabbage, butternut squash puree”, I don’t think “diner food”. Desperate for something dinerish and affordable (Hey, I can afford entrees priced like that, but not, I repeat, NOT at a diner. Those prices are apropriate at Vinny’s or Amichies or any one of the dozens of fantastic “real” restaurants in town), we opted for sandwiches. Matthew’s grilled cheese was fine, as was Gingy’s deluxe grilled cheese (add bacon and tomatoes), but my Monte Cristo sucked ( How do you screw a Monte Cristo up, you ask? You try and get fancy, using focaccia bread and actual turkey breast slices that are drier than Arizona, that’s how. In addition, make sure it’s soggy, that really adds to the dining experience). Top it off with frozen cheesecake for desert (AND NO COFFEE!), and, hey, you’ve managed to negate everything that a “diner” is supposed to stand for!

WHY THE FUCK DO PEOPLE HAVE TO MESS WITH PROVEN CLASSICS THAT HAVE WORKED FOR 50 YEARS??? Want an upscale restaurant? Fine, open one, but don’t try and go half upscale by serving “fancy” dishes in what’s supposed to be a diner (FWIW, the dishes I saw wouldn’t have passed muster in a real restaurant. I couldn’t decide if they were poor-quality good meals or over-priced cheep ones) GAH! I HATE THIS TREND IN RESTAURANTS! Has anyone else noticed a similar move towards “upscale” diners, where the food is crap and the prices are high?
FUCK 'EM! I’m going back to the Bel Loc.

2

Brilliantly executed, Weirddave!

You’ve stumbled upon one of my least favorite cultural trends, one that I’ve nicknamed “The New Basics” after a notorious cookbook that my mother-in-law gave my wife and I. You see, the book claims to contain “the basics,” yet manages to substitute impossibly, even comically complex, frou frou, and overly fancy incarnations of culinary staples. So even a recipe for a no-brainer like “basic french toast, just like mom used to make” becomes “a sliced baguette, marinated overnight in fresh cream, amaretto, and anisette, then pan-seared lightly and garnished with cloves, marzipan, capers, and stuffed with a blend of foi gras, cottage cheese, and topped with sliced truffles.” Give me a !@#$ break!

I blame it on the Boomers - now affluent and aging, with disposeable income out the rear. They have the money to blow, and would rather have “upgraded” versions of familiar things to blow their money on - the irony being, of course, that by “upgrading” inherently lowbrow things like coffeeshops (starbucks) and diners, they remove or nullify that which makes those so beloved in the first place.

3

Meh…as long as Waffle House, IHOP, and Steak and Shake don’t change their basic feel and menu I’m fine as far as diner-types go (Then again, I’m just a child of the 80’s so I don’t have much experience with “real” diners.)

4

Pfft. Can we help it if your mother was dead common?

5

Indeed. So long as Waffle House is still around, none of the rest of this matters. I just wish they had them out here in the PNW but it seems to be an Eastern thing.

6

I’ll tell you where all the diners are. They’re all on fucking Long Island. There, they are as the grains of sand on the beach, the grass of the field, and the stars in the sky. There is nothing else there. It’s fucking ridiculous. These places may be a little more complicated than what you remember, but not too much. But there’s one in every town, and the towns are all close connected, so you can’t drive too far on a main drag without passing them. Almost all of them are the “[Name of Town] Diner.” Most of them seem to be staffed by Greeks, and (of course, this goes without saying) they are all just about identical in design. No one knows why there have to be so many.

7

Wow, that sounds like a really sucky diner.

I’m lucky - I just head on over to the 59 Diner where I can get a patty melt and a chocolate shake served in the metal mixing cup.

I haven’t seen any waitresses named Flo, but I was once served by an old man named Bubbles. Does that count?

8

If you’re ever in State College, PA check out Baby’s. Don’t forget to get a $0.50 sundae after your gullet-engorging meal - it’s the perfect size! (Served in a little Dixie cup with all the toppings.)

They have all the traditional trappings (except the waitresses are college students). Its somewhat obvious its an homage to the Great American Diner, but they do a nifty job.

9

Just c’mon up here to New Jersey, y’hear? I go for lunch several times a week at a diner that’s just right (except no jukeboxes). The waitress is named “Liz” and when she sees me pull into the parking lot she recognizes my car and has my coffee and a glass of water waiting for me. You forgot just one thing: There should be (and is) an inconspicuous bin near the door with today’s newspapers in it. “Regulars” know where it is and help themselves, returning it when they leave.

10

We have one near us, called Cafe Bandoli.

No booths, but there is a counter where you can eat if you like.

The menu is one page, laminated front and back.

The desserts are written on a chalk board, and served from under glass serving plates sitting on the counter.

The food can be a little fancy, what with the spinach-cheese dip appetizer, but they do have meatloaf and steak.

And the waffle fries served with a wonderful horseradish/sour cream dip are to die for.

11

I once read a book that claimed that New Jersey has over 2/3 of the diners in the country. Unfortunately many seem to thing they have to modernize like the OP says. And BTW IHOP and Waffle House are not diners. A real diner can never be a chain. These guys have a pretty good idea what diner is.

12

Good show, Dave.

Let me add a companion mini-rant as example. Don’t try to call yourself an “Olde English Pub” if the restaurant is just another freaking TGI McScratchy’s or Uncle Moe’s Family Feed Bag! Jesus Christ, there’s a place nearby us pretentiously named “The Fox and Hound”, and “Olde English Pub”, which is about as old and English and pubbish as a Golden Corral. Oh wait, they do have “fish and chips” on the menu. :rolleyes:

13

They’re also in the Midwest, except most of those are known as “truckstops” instead. :slight_smile:

14

A truckstop is not the same thing as a diner.

I agree that they are all in New Jersey. And it has some pretty great ones.

15

I can deal with a younger waitress (especially if she’s eye candy), and I can deal with a more elaborate menu (I’ll still get either the eggs or a burger) but dammit, diners must provide fast service.

A diner opened up at the bottom of my parents’ street a few years back, and they go to a diner for breakfast every Sunday, so they were thrilled. First time there, they sat for about 15min before even getting coffee. The actual food took even longer, and they had to wait for their check too. The place wasn’t exactly busy either. Needless to say, I think they gave it one more try, got similar service, and wrote the place off completely.

You should get coffee either immediately after sitting, or your waitress should immediately go get your coffee after seating you. There is no excuse for waiting. Food should be fast, I’m not there for the ambiance. The check should show right after they clear and inquire about dessert. Thankfully, my local diner does the job right, even though there’s no older waitress with her hair in a bun.

16

The fries were good. Can we go to the Bel Loc tonight like I wanted? The reason we didn’t last night is because when I’m hungry, I need to eat NOW, and the Bel Loc is 20 minutes away; we also thought maybe the new place would be nice to try, you know - support the local business and all.

Bleah. Dave and Buglet had an appetizer sampler at the beginning, and a couple of the mozzarella sticks didn’t have mozzarella in them. Even the cheesecake was yucky.

17

one little addition to the rant, a diner may have seafood as long as it’s fried clams. I don’t know if the Mayfair Diner in Philly is still open, but it was as real as it gets. And I could get scrapple any time of the day or night. Which is the other thing about a diner it should be open 24/7.

18

Not to you perhaps but the ones I’ve been to fit Dave’s definition to a T, just with more trucks.

19

OTTOMH I don’t know if the Mayfair is still open. But Philadelphia has plenty of real diners. A few years ago there was a PBS special on Pennsylvania diners, but I can’t remember the name.

20

I doubt you want to mention “T” to Dave right now, it sounds like he may have gone to a Double T diner. They aren’t diners. Baltimore does have a few diners left, as a matter of fact there was one called the Double T, but apparently was forced to change its name a few years ago. It’s still there on route 40 and has a statue of Elvis on the roof of the entryway, although I don’t remember what it’s called now.