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. Until the Great Depression, most diner manufacturers and their customers were located in the Northeast. Duprey and Grenville Stoddard, who established the Worcester Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1906, when O'Mahony was still just 16. Only approximately twenty remain throughout the United States and abroad. The O'Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, produced 2,000 diners from 1917 to 1952. Jerry O'Mahony (1890–1969), who hailed from Bayonne, New Jersey, is credited by some to have made the first such "diner". diner manufacturers, including Jerry O'Mahoney Inc., started in New Jersey. In the decades that followed, nearly all major U.S. The wagon helped spark New Jersey's golden age of diner manufacturing, which in turn made the state the diner capital of the world. 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 copious foot traffic. Like the lunch wagon, a stationary diner allowed one to set up a food service business quickly using pre-assembled constructs and equipment. 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.Īs the number of seats increased, wagons gave way to pre-fabricated buildings made by many of the same manufacturers which had made the wagons. Buckley was successful and became known for his "White House Cafe" wagons. Commercial production of such "lunch wagons" began in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1887, by Thomas Buckley. Scott's diner can be considered the first diner with walk-up service, as it had windows on each side of the wagon. 773 in Somerville, MassachusettsĪ 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. The Rosebud, a restored 1941 Worcester Lunch Car No. In some cases, diners share nostalgic, retro-style features also found in some restored drive-ins and old movie theatres. Ĭlassic American diners often have an exterior layer of stainless steel siding-a feature unique to diner architecture. Along with greasy spoon menu items, many diners will serve regional cuisine as well, such as clam chowder in New England and tacos in California. Comfort food cuisine draws heavily from, and is deeply rooted in, traditional diner fare. Diners often serve milkshakes and desserts such as pies, cake or ice cream. Much of the food is grilled, as early diners were based around a gas-fueled flattop grill. Diners were historically small businesses operated by the owner, with some presence of restaurant chains evolving over time.ĭiners typically serve staples of American cuisine such as hamburgers, french fries, club sandwiches, and other simple, quickly cooked, and inexpensive fare, such as meatloaf or steak. This small footprint also allowed them to be fitted into tiny and relatively inexpensive lots that otherwise were unable to support a larger enterprise. As a result, many early diners were typically small and narrow to fit onto a rail car or truck. From the 1920s to the 1940s, diners, by then commonly known as "lunch cars", were usually prefabricated in factories, like modern mobile homes, and delivered on site with only the utilities needing to be connected. Some of the earliest were converted rail cars, retaining their streamlined structure and interior fittings. Many diners have extended hours, and some along highways and areas with significant shift work stay open for 24 hours.Ĭonsidered quintessentially American, many diners share an archetypal exterior form. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a combination of booths served by a waitstaff and a long sit-down counter with direct service, in the smallest simply by a cook. A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |