"Diners Are the Bad Boys We Aren't Supposed to Love"

The portions, they’re huge. Some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. Hi Nothing like a NYC/ Long Island/ New Jersey diner.

I’m not huge on them, then again I don’t like dive bars. Something about I don’t want down home, I’d rather be impressed.

CT diners are just as good, R1.

Never found a good one out of the tri-state area.

Where am I going to get a pork roll, American cheese, and scrambled egg on a hard roll, if not at a New Jersey diner?

As long as the waitresses are all over 50, smokers, ornery, and call you Hon.

I love love love diners. One of things I miss about NYC.

I love diners, but it's hard to find a good one, nowadays.

Homemade pies? I think those would be hard to find in a diner.

I like diner breakfasts. I hate overcooked eggs, though, so it can be dicey. I also don't like it when diners use the frozen, shredded hash browns. I like cubed-up potatoes for hash browns.

Grilled cheese and milkshakes!

R6 The most pathetic thing about NYCers is their need to claim everything. There is nothing NYC about diners. No one associates diners with NYC.

Dot's Diner is an awesome one with several locations in the New Orleans area. :-)

[quote]Never found a good one out of the tri-state area.

There are good diners everywhere.

Very few Diners out in CA where I live. It's were all the health food and fitness trends start so Diners out here like the bath houses of yesteryear. Both from another era and both dying out over time.

I grew up in New Jersey, so diner culture is huge with me. It’s very comforting food and atmosphere; just working people eating…I miss that area so much.

The hash browns are always first rate. I can’t seem to replicate them in my own kitchen…what’s their secret?

Diners are great for eggs and coffee at all hours. My favorite diner choice is a turkey club sandwich. I think diners should have a funky cool look, a fun name, jukeboxes at every booth, and diner mugs. I appreciate when the waitress is over 50 and preferably talks with a South Jersey accent!

Houston has some good ones. Dot's has been an institution for years.

[R4] I think you meant to say Taylor Ham.

R17 - isn't the pork roll / Taylor ham thing dependant on which have of NJ one cones from.

Meant to type "which half" instead of "have" @ R18.

George Webb’s

[R18] For the most part.

Those of us up in North Jersey are advocates of Taylor Ham, which is actually a brand name. Our South Jersey brethren call it by it’s product name Pork Roll. Central Jersey leans South but claims neutrality.

Our own private civil war.

There used to be some great diners in NYC. But when the city started gentrifying they closed down. The ones that are still left are way overpriced. The whole point of a diner was to get basic food at a cheap price.

I also hate the knockoff diners. There’s a line every night out the door of Ellen’s Stardust Diner. That’s not a real diner, it’s a tourist diner.

I’m the wall mounted jukebox at each table.

Diners are great. American classic. If you're too good to eat at a diner I don't want to know you.

[quote]There are good diners everywhere.

I'm sorry, but where do you live? This simply isn't true. American diners are concentrated on the east coast, mainly the northeast. The nexus of diner culture is New Jersey.

I suspect you're conflating "diners" with all fast casual restaurants and that's simply not accurate. Diners are a specific class of restaurant and just because a place sells burgers and omelettes doesn't mean they're a real diner.

I love diners.

But the overwhelming smell of fryers, grills and atomized grease require a shower and change of clothes afterwards to not feel like a limp French fry left on a plate in "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

I've lived in VA or DC all my life and I like diners here, but there is something amazing about diners in NYC and NJ, I agree. I just love them. The food is predictable and reliable, they're the opposite of luxurious but could not be more comfortable, and being inside of diners is the closest I've ever come to understanding the 'americana' concept that so many people romanticize. That may be because I grew up reading Archie comics and Pop's Diner was the central hub of the Riverdale neighborhood, I dunno. Whatever the reason, I really love diners. Aside from the whole ultra-conformity and raging sexism, racism and homophobia thing, diners make me feel like living in the 50s would've been a utopia.

Nothing like a classic Greek diner. Great menu, sesame seed rimmed “Greek” toast, pay up front at the counter, a big case of desserts that aren’t on the menu and you wonder who orders them….

Sadly they’re going the way of the dodo - like Korean dry cleaners/laundromats - as the newer gens assimilate and don’t want to continue the family business.

Don’t know if they’re still there but the Melrose Diners in Chicago were 2nd to none, at Belmont & Broadway and near Belmont Station. Tempo Diner at Clark & Oak Street (-ish) was great as well. Had 100s of omelettes at all of those places, fantastic.

Melrose is long gone R29 (closed and now a new breakfast place). Stella’s in Lakeview down the road sold last year - couldn’t handle all the stress anymore - but the branding is the same for now.

[quote]Very few Diners out in CA where I live. It's were all the health food and fitness trends start so Diners out here like the bath houses of yesteryear. Both from another era and both dying out over time.

SoCal used to be the capital of the old-fashioned "coffee shop", very similar to diners. Nowadays, even the term "coffee shop" is out of date; most younger people think of Starbucks-like places when they hear it. Same style of food as diners. Certain mid-1960's aesthetic in terms of the look and feel. They're still around, but not nearly as ubiquitous as they used to be.

I remember a couple of good diners in San Diego that had great food.

It's only a diner if:

1) the menu is enormous with varied options.

2) the menu includes burgers, club sandwiches, french fries served multiple ways, dinner entrees with soup and salad included, and an entire all day breakfast menu.

3) the hours of operation extend into late night, past dinner time.

4) the location is on a major highway, at the intersection of two large, high traffic streets, or in an urban setting.

I'd love to hear more about these "great diners" that are "everywhere." My travels around the US say otherwise.

I should add to R33:

5) there is a counter with seats, and if there is additional seating besides the counter, there are booths.

In Chicago we have the “Greek joints” which are seemingly diners. Giant menus, open late, some have breakfast all day and cases full of pastries.

Back in the 80s LA still had the coffee shop chain Norm’s as well as a few others including Googie’s - which lent its name to that whole aesthetic of jet-age modern architecture inside and out that those types of establishments typically had. By the late 80s most of those had some “modernizing” updates, like teal & pink upholstery, that clashed with the more 50s Vegas structure and interior design, but they were popular and fairly large inside.

Norm’s had counter seating, older waitresses and comfortable booths but it did “feel” slightly different than the typical Northeast diner. Even now many new NY/NJ diners still somewhat evoke the “art deco railroad car” style that was the hallmark of a Diner in the early 20th century. There were still more than a few of those chrome trailers in Manhattan until quite recently. If the are in a building, diners are usually on the small, narrow side with fairly basic interiors. If you had a restaurant as big as a typical Norm’s in Manhattan, with that 60s Lux styling it was usually called a coffee shop or a delicatessen.

R35, a lot of diners are owned by Greeks. A lot of Greek restaurants start out as diners and even retain aspects of diners on their menus, like serving all day breakfast or including a selection of burgers and club sandwiches alongside the souvlaki and gyros.

It's interesting because I've encountered dinners with large Greek sections on the menu, and similar ones with extensive Italian or Mexican offerings. It's like the diner includes an entire other type of restaurant. These definitely don't disqualify them as diners as long as they meet the other critieria at R33 and R34.

In the UK they are called a "The Greasy Spoon".

There is overlap between diners, greasy spoons, delicatessens (with sit down dining), and old-style coffee shops (with waitresses, not "baristas"), but each of these are distinct concepts in the US. Greasy spoons are downmarket by definition, but some diners are actually pretty nice and respectable, even upscale. Greasy spoons don't necessarily have extended hours and often don't serve entrees, just breakfast and sandwiches/burgers. Greasy spoons are often tucked away somewhere off the main path, and diners are always in high traffic areas.

I grew up in a town off rt. 22 in New Jersey, so eating out was usually either diner or Italian. Or seafood if my mother and father were splurging. At a diner, I would invariably order a cheeseburger, medium rare, with fries, and a Coke. Sometimes a vanilla Coke. My father made perfect pork roll sandwiches at home, so I never ate those out.

My town was in the 201 area code, north Jersey, but we did not call pork roll anything but pork roll. I never heard of "Taylor Ham" until the internet, in the 21st century. When I moved to Manhattan, the equivalent of diners were called coffee shops.

This thread is leaving me feeling like I want a cheeseburger, medium rare.

They were very popular in the Midwest where I live. I swear there were times the food had enough grease it just slid down your throat, no chewing needed! Loved it growing up. We had three diners that were in Airstream trailers.

There was a good one in Brevard County Florida called Loreen's. Loreen owned and operated it. Every morning she would bake a turkey, so you could get a real homemade turkey dinner with all the fixings every day of the year. She also used the fresh baked turkey for the best turkey club sandwiches.

I love diner/coffee shop dining in Manhattan and Philadelphia and surrounding areas. New Jersey is filled with great diners. I l enjoy "people watching" the clientele. I adore the waitresses who call me "hon". I love eggs over easy with hash browns/homefries, sausage/bacon at lunchtime. Needless to say I'm a big Twin Peaks fan. Don't really like diner desserts although the milkshakes and the rice pudding are usually great! Can be heavy handed with the cinnamon however!

[quote]Needless to say I'm a big Twin Peaks fan.

Huh? The show or the breastaraunts where the girls are dressed like sexy lumberjacks?

There was an establishment in Twin Peaks that served pie (I haven't seen the show in 30+ years so my memory is vague) but I think that would qualify more as a coffee shop than a diner. "Twin Peaks," the fictional location of the show, was a small town and off the beaten track, so I don't think it could support a real dinner with all day breakfast and late night hours. It also doesn't fit the R33 criteria of being on a high traffic thoroughfare or within a city. That was a small town coffee shop with some diner-like attributes, but not a real diner.

I would argue, and I’m sure many would disagree, that Waffle House is a diner in the classic sense. They certainly are the largest chain serving diner-type food, with over 1900 locations.

[quote]a lot of diners are owned by Greeks.

I wonder why that is. It does seem to be the case.

[quote]They were very popular in the Midwest

You better believe it, buster.

VERA! PICK UP!

I would love anywhere that might have a speck of protein for me. A roach, perhaps?

Waffle houses are not diners. Their menu is far too limited; they don't serve pancakes or french toast, entrees with soup and salad, or any form of club sandwich. They only added fries recently and not all locations have them. They have a lot of diner qualities, but they're more of a greasy spoon than a diner. The limited menu is the dealbreaker, absolutely no diner can fit its entire menu on 2 pages.

For national chains, Denny's is the most diner-like, not Waffle House.

[quote]They were very popular in the Midwest where I live.

That doesn't make them any good. I lived in Des Moines for a while. Not good.

I liked them until I was about 40. Now I am old and diners feel grim. I kind of still like highway and hospital cafeteria restaurants.

Only on DL could people say "no, your diners suck, the only good ones are here!"

I grew up outside NYC and we had four 24-hour diners within a five-mile radius. A night out at the bars always ended up at the diner. I usually got challah bread french toast. Sometimes a toasted bagel with butter. I miss diners. And carbs. And being able to be out until dawn.

I am now living in the same vicinity after over 20 years away. Two of the diners have become "fancy" and ridiculously overpriced. The other two are more or less the same. However, none are open 24 hours anymore. I think they all close at 9 pm now.

[quote]Only on DL could people say "no, your diners suck, the only good ones are here!"

Only on DL could people who live in Flyoverstan think their food is as good as you find on the coasts.

R56 I'm on a coast and can say with certainty good food can be found everywhere. Chicago stands out.

Freshen yer coffee, doll?

[Quote]A night out at the bars always ended up at the diner

Disco fries! Fries covered with melted mozzarella and gravy.

My night out at the bars ended up, rear end up, or on my knees. Maybe on all fours.

My Auntie Mary, God love her soul worked in various one in NJ. Said she could never duplicate the money she made there anywhere else. She liked to work the counter & booths near the counter. Breakfast shift. She knew all the truckers & regulars. Knew their orders & had them ready before they even hit the counter. Heavy tips.

She liked doing what she called 18 wheeling w. a Rambo. I think a many Rambo liked to hit her on the Magic Mile. Auntie Mary was a dish.

The coffee is greatext in a good Greek diner. Good Greek diners(the best they are OCD w. cleanliness) , thoroughly clean out the big urns every time it empties wi. boiling water & the big brushes & no soap ever.

[quote]good food can be found anywhere

When I read a blanket statement like this that is so far from my own reality, I have to assume the speaker has virtually no standards whatsoever and will always default to a moronic cheerfulness that's likely hiding something sinister or disturbing.

Bad restaurants exist. Bad food exists. This little kick some of you are on where any negative statement about anything gets countered with some "up is down and everything is perfect" contrarianism, just elicits a massive eye roll from me.

R48, Mel's Diner (of Alice fame) was in Arizona, not the midwest.

San Francisco has or had some nice diners. I see that Dottie's True Blue Cafe closed during Covid.

Here's the menu. No club sandwich.

Anyone from Chicago remember Peter's near Fullerton/Lincoln/Halsted? Long since gone. :(

New Jersey diners are *the* diners. My favorites were always the diner corn muffin, chicken sal san, and tuna melt with fries.

You may find a diner down in Georgia or

Carolina off the twenty by the Piggly Wiggly

In the country out of Waynesboro

Or when it's getting late and rainy out in New York State

You hang a louie off the thru-way

And you go and grab yourself a cheeseburger

At the little gem diner off the six niner

Diner my shiny, shiny love

In the night you're all I'm thinking of

Diner my shiny, shiny love

(Yabalabala shoop dee, yabalabala shoop dee)

(Yabalabala shoop dee, yabalabala shoo)

Yeah, I've heard that NJ is the best place for diners. I'd love to go to one of those railroad car diners or a place like the Sopranos went to on the final episode.

R24 I’m too good to eat at a diner. There I said it. Also haven’t eaten from a drive through in 5 years.

Well, smell R68!

And I'm very glad not to know you, R68.

Not to muddy the water, but consider the "dinor" culture of NW Pennsy;vania:

Tom's Diner. Referred to as a "coffee SHOP" and as "Monk's CAFE" but not as a DINER on Seinfeld. The sign out front says RESTAURANT. You make the call.

I tend to love every movie with a scene in a diner, or on a train.

Who was saying diners aren’t all over the country?

People who don't write click bait articles for a living are saying it, R74. I assume we're all north-easterners who know the actual score and not Billy Bob from Bumfucke trying to claim Sassy's Down Home Chicken Fry out on Route 11 is a diner because they serve cole slaw and they're open on Sundays.

R62 I think you read too much into a statement. Of course bad restaurants are everywhere but so are good ones.

R75, no, we’re not all northeasterners. I’ve lived all over the country and have always encountered diners. They’re not regional.

R72, I would need to see the menu. Do they have club sandwiches and all day breakfast? Do they serve dinner entrees that come with soup and salad? Also, they open past 8pm?

R40, my relatives in New Jersey live in that area; Fanwood and North Plainfield. The rest are in Monmouth County. Frank’s Deli in Asbury Park and The Stone Pony, along with The Asbury boardwalk are some of my favorite places. Diners are just the bonus.

I like diners, well, the good ones, architecturally or for their food, or (too rarely) both. Diners to me are a thing I always cite when asked about classic American food. Diners and the concept of a 24-hour breakfast of the whole American breakfast menu are fairly unique, I think, not so much for the menu items 9many of which are found in other cultures) but for the whole package and a particular ambience. The old Howard Johnson restaurants under the orange roofs and white exteriors, trimmed out with touches of turquoise, are a stage in the evolution, and many other chain restaurants on diner-derived models. Breakfast in other countries is not the complicated set of instructions it is in the U.S.: How would you like your eggs? What kind of toast would you like? Hash browns or home fries?...The whole Waffle House litany of choices and the generous display of condiments and sweeteners and milks and non-dairy substitutes. It's that big, booming American choice thing...found now more in Starbucks with a more competitive edge of who can make the prissiest, most specific order that can make you hate a stranger in milliseconds, a stranger known to you for nothing more than his coffee order. It's a leftover from pricking from '22 flavors of ice cream', or 79 flavors of IHOP pancake syrup. Big and generous and filling, it spawned it'ß own atomic age Googie Style Architecture in L.A., all an outgrowth of American diners. It trickled down in sadder ways to Denny's and Big Boy restaurant chains, these hubs of busy, fast-moving waitresses, long menus with complicated substitutions, jukeboxes sometimes, shifty people often, but with more respectable sorts mixed in in the respectable hours.

Outside of that, the culinary contributions of the U.S. have been largely in Southern food, and the California-stylizations and rarifications that don't so much constitute a cuisine in itself. There are some regional foods, lobster in Maine, for example, but there are lobsters in other parts of the world, too, and the Maine lobster roll didn't exactly spawn 100s of knock-off fast food joints across the U.S.; the real contribution of the U.S. to food and foodways has been mostly Southern. And diners and the idea of a bright, busy, active restaurant where you can get a huge breakfast, nurse a cup of coffee for hours and contemplate Edward Hopper, or order a rib-eye steak for breakfast, with fried clams on the side, all topped with a fried egg if you're inclined. Diners and Southern food are the two best things about American food.

Dishco friesh.

There were two in St. Louis.

First, there was the Majestic, on Euclid & Laclede. Back in the day when the Central West End was gay central, going to the Majestic was like going to your high school reunion. Sadly, it closed about 10 years ago simply because the owners were tired of running the place.

The other legendary diner in STL with the Goody Goody on Natural Bridge Avenue, across from the Chevrolet plant. There was an electrical fire in 2019 and they never reopened, having survived 30 years after the closing of the GM plant and a neighborhood going down the shitter at a rapid clip.

I don't want to eat anything in the state of New Jersey. Gross.

FFS, R83, are you a baby or just an idiot? You think NJ is all smokestacks and oozing industrial wastes?

Would you feel better if your tomatoes came from Southern California? Your hamburgers came by way of the Midwestern slaughterhouses?

I think diners are great but food trucks are the next evolution. I love being able to go get a Cubano and then a lobster roll all in the same block.

R67 - The last scene in The Sopranos (filmed in Holsten's) is technically at an ice cream parlor (with great ice cream BTW)

My local NJ diner has a baker. All desserts are made on the premises. They have the best cheesecake I have ever eaten.

[quote]I don't want to eat anything in the state of New Jersey. Gross.

I don't have that problem.

[quote] I don't want to eat anything in the state of New Jersey. Gross.

Your loss, bitch.

[quote]You think NJ is all smokestacks and oozing industrial wastes?

Well, I got breast cancer just driving through New Jersey. Somewhere around the turnpike.

[quote]Well, I got breast cancer just driving through New Jersey. Somewhere around the turnpike.

Blame the fumes emitted from your cunt.

R83 Just so you know:

The problem with New Jersey is that it's also New York's dumping ground. It's were all the trash gets shipped to. No pun intended.

In Northern California and meeting friends at Marin Joe's tonight. Not really a diner but definitely old school, with a counter, booths, crusty but friendly waitstaff and a menu that hasn't changed much since the 1950s.

Oops, sorry link did not work.

R94, that looks too pricey to be considered diner-adjacent.

I lived in Bloomfield, NJ for decades. Blue collar town in Essex County. The Nevada diner has gone through many renovations, now in its grandest phase. The menu is extensive, there is now a bar, on premise bakery, ample portions, good value. Now open 7 till 1am. Always open on holidays. I moved away 5 years ago miss my breakfasts and lunches there. Just a great local place.

The was a diner in the San Diego Hillcrest area called Corvettes in the nineties. Is it still there?

The few NYC Diners left in my neighborhood on the UWS are way overpriced - I'll pass on pancakes for $25.

[quote] The was a diner in the San Diego Hillcrest area called Corvettes in the nineties. Is it still there?

Corvette (not in Hillcrest, BTW) is one of those awful "sassy waitresses in poodle skirts and bouffants" fake re-creations of a 50's diner experience, complete with the over-the-top, headache-inducing decor, and inflated prices. There used to be a similar place on La Cienega in LA called Ed Debevic's. Some people seem to enjoy those places, but I'm not one of them.

Marin Joe's isn't a diner. That's a stretch. It's an Italian restaurant. It has an $85 double Porterhouse steak on the menu. But for some reason, it does have omelets and a club sandwich on the menu.

I agree R100. If it's called "Corvettes", no way is it a genuine diner. From that name alone, you know what you're in for. No thanks.

Who said diners aren't supposed to be loved? Most gays love retro things, including food. Seriously, no one has ever said no to going to a diner, gay or straight.

I'm a super fan of diners! You could say I grew up on them. Momma's food to me!

There was also a diner near the Navy base In National City. I’d go with my shipmates after a night on the town. Can’t remember the name of it though.

Seeing the name Ed Debevik’s just triggered me.

I’d rather go to a diner for a club sandwich and fries than a trendy, fusion-food restaurant.