Diners

The American Diner

Considered quintessentially American, diners share an archetypal exterior form. A crude precursor of the diner was created in 1872 by Walter Scott, who sold food out of a horse-pulled wagon to employees of the Providence Journal, in Providence, Rhode Island. Scott’s diner can be considered the first diner with walk-up service, as it had windows on each side of the wagon. Commercial production of such “lunch wagons” began in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1887, by Thomas Buckley. Buckley became known for his “White House Cafe” wagons. Charles Palmer received the first patent (1893) for the diner, which he billed as a “Night-Lunch Wagon.” He built his “fancy night cafes” and & “night lunch wagons” in the Worcester area until 1901. Some of the earliest were converted rail dining cars (though there are few), retaining their streamlined structure and interior fittings.

From the 1920s to the 1940s, diners, by then commonly known as “lunch cars,” were usually prefabricated in factories from NJ, NY, and MA. Some diner manufacturing companies include Jerry O’Mahony, Mountain View, DeRaffele, Silk City, Fodero, Worcester Lunch Company, and Kullman. Like modern mobile homes and delivered on site with only the utilities needing to be connected. As a result, many early diners were typically small and narrow to fit onto a rail car or truck. This small footprint also allowed them to be fitted into tiny and relatively inexpensive lots that otherwise were unable to support a larger enterprise. Diners were historically small businesses operated by the owner, with some presence of restaurant chains evolving over time. Much like the lunch wagon, a stationary diner allowed one to set up a food service business quickly using pre-assembled constructs and equipment.

The Transfer Station neighborhood of Union City, New Jersey was the site, in 1912, of the first lunch wagon built by Jerry and Daniel O’Mahoney and John Hanf, which was bought for $800 and operated by restaurant entrepreneur Michael Griffin, who chose the location for its copiousfoot traffic. The wagon helped spark New Jersey's golden age of diner manufacturing, which in turn made the state the diner capital of the world. In the decades that followed, nearly all major U.S. diner manufacturers, including Jerry O’Mahoney Inc., started in New Jersey.  O’Mahony (1890–1969), who hailed from Bayonne, New Jersey, is credited by some to have made the first such “diner.” The O’Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, produced 2,000 diners from 1917 to 1952. Only approximately twenty [7]  remain throughout the United States and abroad. In the traditional diner floorplan, a service counter dominates the interior, with a preparation area against the back wall and floor-mounted stools for the customers in front. Larger models may have a row of booths against the front wall and at the ends. The decor varied over time.

Diners of the 1920s–1940s feature Art Deco or Streamline Moderne elements or copy the appearance of rail dining cars. They featured porcelain enamel exteriors, some with the name written on the front, others with bands of enamel, others in flutes. Many had a “barrel vault” roofline. Tile floors were common. Diners of the 1950s tended to use stainless steel panels, porcelain enamel, glass blocks, terrazzo floors, formica and neon sign trim. Diners built in the 2000s generally have a different type of architecture; they are laid out more like restaurants, retaining some aspects of traditional diner architecture (stainless steel and Art Deco elements, usually) while discarding others (the small size, and emphasis on the counter). Classic American diners often have an exterior layer of stainless steel siding—a feature unique to diner architecture. In some cases, diners share nostalgic, retro-style features also found in some restored drive-ins and old movie theatres.

Until the Great Depression, most diner manufacturers and their customers were located in the Northeast. Diner manufacturing suffered with other industries during the Depression, though not as much as many industries, and the diner offered a less expensive way of getting into the restaurant business as well as less expensive food than more formal establishments. After World War II, as the economy returned to civilian production and the suburbs boomed, diners were an attractive small business opportunity. During this period, diners spread beyond their original urban and small town market to highway strips in the suburbs, even reaching the Midwest, with manufacturers such as Valentine. After the Interstate Highway System was implemented in the U.S. in the 1960s, diners saw a boom in business as mobile travelers would stop for a meal.

Diners attract a wide spectrum of the local populations and are generally small businesses. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, they have been seen as quintessentially American, reflecting the perceived cultural diversity and egalitarian nature of the country at large. Throughout much of the 20th century, diners, mostly in the Northeast, were often owned and operated by Greek-American immigrant families. The presence of Greek casual food, like gyros and souvlaki, on several northeastern diners’ menus, testifies to this cultural link.

But as a rule, diners were always symbols of American optimism. Norman Rockwell made his 1958 painting, The Runaway, generically American by placing his subjects, a young boy and a protective highway patrolman, at the counter of an anonymous diner. In television and cinema (e.g. The Blob, Happy Days, Grease and Diner), diners and soda fountains have come to symbolize the period of prosperity and optimism in America in the 1950s. They are shown as the place where teenagers meet after school and as an essential part of a date. The television show Alice used a diner as the setting for the program, and one is often a regular feature in sitcoms such as Seinfeld. The diner’s cultural influence continues today. Many non-prefab restaurants (including franchises like Denny’s) have copied the look of 1950s diners for nostalgic appeal, while Waffle House uses an interior layout derived from the diner. Diners have figured significantly in American films and television since the form developed. In I Love Lucy, the episode titled “The Diner” shows the perils, pitfalls, and difficulty in operating a diner, to much comedic effect. Archetypal appearances include significant scenes in classic films such as Sullivan’s Travels and The Killers. The 1982 “rites of passage” film Diner was centered on an eatery shared by the protagonists. Waitress in 2007 was about a waitress in a diner. Television series include the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. Pennsylvania Diners and Other Roadside Restaurants, is a 1993 documentary. Diners are the focus of photorealist painter John Baeder who spent about 40 years painting diners across the US. In 1990 Williams Electronics Games introduced a pinball machine entitled Diner. The object of the game is to serve all customers to light-up Dine Time (the jackpot).

Scott Olszewski, Diner Day in the USA