When I was growing up someplace in Flint Michigan was an old fashioned stainless steel diner. The kind that was designed to look like a streamlined railroad car, only twice the width. My mother loved it. A handful of times my mother took me along when she was shopping or running errands, and we would stop at the diner. I remember seeing exoitic things on the menue like a Ruben Sandwich, the first couple of times my mother advised me what to order and assured me it would be tasty. And it was. Understand at this point in my life I lived in the middle of nowhere and had traveled and experienced very little of the adventure of life.
There was something special about the places it all began. The style translated into some restaurants, there was one at Colonial Plaza in Orlando that operated into the early 1990's - the best tongue sandwich in the southeast, and fresh pickles made in house.
The original model is hard to sustain in a modern world. The seating is limited to 20-30 people, and health and safety requirements limit packing in the people and require more space for sanitation. You see them open, but few sustain for more than a couple of years. The financial model doesn't seem to work.
The one above operates inside of the Henry Ford Museum. It has overflow seating on a deck (inside of the museum) and a back room behind the kitchen for modern food storage and dishwashing that the original didn't have. I was there mid afternoon, found a nice seat inside and had a wonderful trip down memory lane.
The other flashback to those days out with mom, when it started raining and she turned on the windshield wipers, I would drift off to sleep to the rhythmic tempo of the windshield wipers. Good thing I don't do that when I am driving.
What is your diner story?
The first time I was ever in a diner like the one pictured was when I was 3. My mother's friend took care of us for a few hours and took us to a diner for lunch. Without asking she ordered franks and beans for me. If I didn't already hate franks and beans, that day made sure of it... for life. I'll avoid that particular Memory Lane.
ReplyDeletea treat was going to twaddell's diner in paoli with my parental units and stupid sister. we behaved OR ELSE. the diner was bigger than the pix above. I learned to like fried scallops there. still like them. where the diner was is now a chevy dealership.
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