A series of sit-ins were held throughout the '50s and '60s to protest segregation in restaurants and other public places. Though President Lyndon B. Johnson forbid the practice by signing the Civil Rights Act of , black customers often still suffered unfair prices, poor service, and more. Before the smell of food-court Chinese food permeated shopping centers, sitting down for lunch at a department store restaurant was a common occurrence.
Bloomingdale's, Marshall Field's, Macy's, and other stores served simple sandwiches, salads, and desserts onsite, so shoppers could have a leisurely meal while running their errands. That bar situation puts our present day food and beverage cart to shame.
Travel and entertainment charge cards were a trendy way to settle the bill when dining out with friends or colleagues. The Diner's Club system allowed patrons to pay their balance from participating restaurants at the end of each through their credit account. Before a long car ride meant grabbing a Happy Meal at the McDonald's drive-through, Howard Johnson's was a hugely popular stop for hungry travelers. It was the largest restaurant chain in the U. Though residential air conditioning was nothing new, restaurants with cooling systems were less common.
Many spots advertised AC along with their menu items to draw in customers, especially during hot, summer days. If you wanted to control the tunes while you ate, you could bet there was a jukebox in the corner, waiting for your song selections.
The introduction of wallboxes meant diners could do it right from their table or booth. Today certain restaurants and convenience stores stay open 24 hours , but 50 years ago, classic diners were just about the only place to grab a bite at any time, day or night. They were most prevalent in large cities and areas where factory workers were on the job around the clock. Restaurants like Denny's and Waffle House bucked tradition by staying open on major holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, bringing in a ton of business and inspiring others to adopt a day operation.
You used to have to dine at a white tablecloth establishment like the Twenty-One Club to satisfy your coq au vin craving. But more people were traveling in the late '60s, and as a result, more exotic foods became in demand. Frozen food companies found a way to produce pre-made versions so that restaurants of all price points could offer these dishes.
Terms like "du jour" became more commonly used to describe anything from the daily soup to pie selection. They were used in all kinds of eateries—from diners to fancy steak houses.
And, boy, do they look comfortable. Can we bring this back? It was the height of sophistication to have a dish like Steak Diane or Cherries Jubilee wheeled out and prepared right next to your table. Kitchen Tips and Tools. Delish Shop. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. John Pratt Getty Images. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. Share this —. I may allow some slack for most diners, but, in my mind, a well-run diner must do two things perfectly every time: Coffee and home fries.
The Dining Car makes up for this with desserts. Like a big diner should, it greets all customers at the door with a barrage of baked goods. Though, waiting around for a seat is a form of torture, especially for anyone trying to shed a muffin top.
Today, the Dining Car still keeps those traditional hours, but it attracts company in fewer and fewer numbers. It is a bona fide, old-school diner in continuous operation since it opened in Yes, the building is beat, worn around the edges, and unraveling in places, but it is also full of life, staffed by people who take pride in their work, and refreshingly devoid of kitschy self-awareness.
It is a true-and-tried diner. As an added bonus, a seat at the counter gives you front-row access to the action. A proper omelet is carefully fried in a well-seasoned aluminum pan with the filling folded in. The end result should be a bright yellow, fluffy egg turnover that snugly blankets the filling. Silk City exemplifies the vintage diner that has successfully adapted to contemporary tastes all while retaining its original charms.
I often say that the best way to preserve diners is to keep them viable. In the face of extreme competition, age, new layers of regulation, and increasing overhead, viability for a seat, short-order restaurant becomes a Herculean task.
Sometimes it requires a fresh approach and maybe one that most might think is crazy. One of the developments that sparked the resurgence of interest in the American diner came about with the reimagining of the concept by the owners of the Empire Diner in New York in Burgers you expected to find for a buck fifty in such a place now cost five dollars, but the money bought you an expertly grilled fresh half-pound of meat served on a fresh-baked roll served with hand-cut French fries.
The diner takes its name from the company that built it. Silk City, currently owned by restauranteur Mark Bee, has diversified its revenue stream with the night club and bar which frees it from relying upon the weekend breakfast trade that so many smaller diners live or die by. If I can have a slice of meat loaf and my friend can munch on edamame while we sip a cocktail, everyone wins, and the diner lives on to serve a new generation. Ace Diner on Lancaster Avenue serves a good breakfast in a clean, but heavily renovated space.
Behind the foreboding, Darth Vader-like facade sits a lates Silk City diner that serves up the most basic of menus. They have about four things available for lunch and two of them are a turkey club sandwich served either with bacon or turkey bacon. The big sign outside advertises homemade bread, which you can get on the side with one of your breakfast dishes. The interior is very clean, but about the only original feature left to the diner is its vaulted ceiling. For some reason that roll along the roofline became an extremely popular motif on retro-styled diners starting back in the mids.
Most of the time contractors use them to cover up the roof-top air conditioning units and to add additional height for increased profile. In the case of the Broad Street Diner, they also replaced a shoddy vinyl awning that adorned the restaurant for years. Another Michael Petrogiannis diner. The Broad Street sat closed for many years beginning in the early s, and one report had Stephen Starr interested in reopening it. The diner was originally built by Fodero of Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Like the renovations at the Melrose, they could have been much worse, and Petrogiannis even applied a restrained and classy palate to the interior. Good soups and lunch. Casa Del Marisco is a sports bar on 5th Street. A beaten down Mountain View diner that looks like the owners use it for storage or maybe converted it into a kitchen for their sports bar addition.
In many ways, his designers improved upon the original interior that is as rare as a perfect omelette. Photo: Michael Bixler. You can also get dinner here. Country Club Diner, another one under the Petrogiannis umbrella, still adheres to its Jewish-American menu established by the Perloff Family.
Can a diner still call itself Jewish-American after a Greek immigrant buys it? Since the s, the Perloff family ran the Country Club in the Rhawnhurst neighborhood catering to its Jewish community. The Domino Diner suffered a fire eight years ago and is likely abandoned now. The Domino suffered a major fire eight years ago and has yet to reopen. While most of the damage occurred in the kitchen, the diner has seriously deteriorated after what looks like an outright abandonment.
Casa Espana now serves as a nightclub. The Golden Sword Diner is now a latin-themed night club. This diner is a perfect example of why you do not want to become a diner aficionado. Built in by Paramount to a standard of quality that no one else could match, it served in the s as one of two American Diners in Philadelphia and was an attempt to upscale the traditional diner menu.
Asian fusion. Hard core diner fans feel tingles up their inseams upon such discoveries. You see nothing from the outside, but walk through the door and the early s Silk City in very original condition reveals itself. Inside, the owners have built in a private dining room, but split the rest of the space for open seating and waitress service.
Mayfair Diner is still clad in chrome. Yet another Petrogiannis acquisition. The Mayfair Diner ended an year run under the same family in Up until that time the Mulholland family ran, what was in my estimation, the best of the big Philly diners in terms of its preservation, food, and overall hospitality.
Seeing the Mayfair for the first time in was a jaw dropping experience. What looked like the longest, stainless steel diner on the planet which was actually a very long diner married expertly to an existing cinder-block, stainless-clad addition welcomed you inside with nothing but superlatives. Yet again, it could have been much worse. The Mulhollands also performed some minor renovations in the s. I do miss the original owners, but maybe it was time for a change as in the last few years food quality had noticeably declined and the hours were cut back.
New Boulevard recently changed their name to the Five Star Diner. You might expect to get dental work inside rather than a good breakfast. This is a diner built by Kullman Industries, which at the time was the oldest diner builders in the country. When built, the few remaining companies produced restaurants in confused styles, but no one held a candle to some of the creations that came out of the Kullman factory.
Kullman would later become the first of the builders to produce retro-style diners on a regular basis, but before then you had diners like this one. The Boulevard has gone through a series of ownerships in the past 10 to 15 years, probably because of its poor location, but maybe also because of its crazy, hall-of-mirrors interior. Oak Lane Diner on North Broad looking worse for wear.
Well regarded by the Oak Lane neighborhood, the current diner is at least the second to sit at that location. In fact, you can still visit the previous diner in Newburgh, New York. As I write, the diner is now boarded up after a fire closed it down last January. At the beginning of June, the City served a notice to the owners that stated they had 30 days to either fix it or demolish it.
It was unnecessarily renovated in both inside and out, which stripped away some of the incomparable stainless work. Sometime in the aughts they stripped out more. Penrose Diner in before renovations completely changed the character of the restaurant a few years later. What I wrote about Kabobeesh applies to the Penrose as well. Up until about the Penrose was a spectacular example of quasi-Googie diner styling.
The big DeRaffele diner featured soaring folded-plate roof line, expansive plate glass windows, and a space-age interior that restaurateurs in places like New York and San Francisco spend a small fortune to recreate. The Penrose had it all in spades. But no, the owners just had to go and crash land this beauty into a sea of ugly. Who the hell cares. Spice Grill in Port Richmond. Not much left to see here except for the basic outlines of a classic 50s structure. Great breakfast at Spring Garden Pizza and the owners are sweet as pie.
Thanks to the internet you no longer have to waste hours of time and tankfuls of gas visiting local history museums, antique shops, and libraries to find vintage photos of diners and other roadside attractions consigned to history or often transformed into something else. While a trained eye can often tell if a building was once a diner, you still need the photos to confirm it and just such a search from the comfort of my desk chair confirmed this find.
Somewhere under that brooding exterior is a shiny, s structure. Anyone who believes that they can improve upon the look and quality of a true stainless steel diner probably has some serious psychological issues. The diner offers a basic, no-frills menu.
Red Robin on Frankford Avenue was well liked. The Red Robin Diner represents the transitional style of diners popular in the mid-to-late s when stainless steel had lost its shine.
Fodero became one of the leading builders of these Mediterranean diners that truly began to reflect the tastes and preferences of their owners. Now he owns the big, Mediterranean style structure of undetermined ancestry. Ride Trains. Shop on Main Street.
Put a porch on your house. Live in a walkable community. Find out more about his work and writings at www. Great article!! I remember the Mayfair diner. Forget its name but it sure was crowded at 2 am! I also remember the great food in diners. Great article thank you. Built between and it was originally the Paoli but was moved to Frazer on Lancaster Ave, in The Frazer was built in the mids. I visited the site of the former Aramingo, and it looked like about the only thing left to it was the foundation, so I chose not to include it in this list.
Thank you Jay. It has been so long, but that name rings a familiar bell. Up until then the food and service were great, and they had fantastic thick-cut bacon.
The last time I wandered in I found an angry looking man in a suit managing the place, and very scared looking waitstaff scurrying about everywhere. The place had a well earned reputation for great food and friendly wait staff, and it was ruined, just like that. All the golden goddesses!
Articles like this raise my homesickness for Philadelphia to Olympian heights. I remember the original Oak Lane diner to be a red Formica looking building very small. It consisted of about 4 or 5 booths on ether side of the central entrance and a counter.
It was replaced with a stainless chrome and larger diner about Ellwood or Holy Angels? I lived in Oak Lane fom to and after the war from to Went to Ellwood, Wagner, and Central. I worked there as a dishwasher in the s. Alex, you are correct. It was the Ritz for quite awhile and since has gone through many name changes. I remember when this first opened in about It was originally called the Heritage Diner. My family used to eat there once a week for years. I remember going there as a kid with my dad and grandfather.
Great memories! I started at 13 yrs old. Its sad what became of The Ritz. When I worked there it was always busy especially on the weekends. A hostess sometimes had to take names out in the lobby. As other restaurants opened up I just think they failed to adapt.
I had a lot of great memories working there. Its ashame it changed hands so many times after the Ritz and failed each and every time. I worked for your grandfather Pete and your Dad from the age of 12 to 17 at the Heritage. Outstanding memories. This article was intended to document only REAL prefabricated diners, i.
For the sake of their preservation as an architectural form, I mostly concern myself mainly with prefabricated diners.
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