Diner
Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIN : Diner
- This article is about a type of restaurant. For other meanings, see Diner (disambiguation).
History
Diners developed from mobile lunch wagons. Like the lunch wagon, a diner allowed one to set up a food service business quickly using preassembled equipment. The first manufactured dining wagons with seating appeared in the late 19th century, serving busy downtown locations without the need to buy expensive real estate. Until the Great Depression, most diner manufacturers and their customers were located in the Northeast and New Jersey
Diner manufacturing suffered with other industries in the Depression, though not as much as others, as people still had to eat, and the diner offered a less expensive way of getting in the restaurant business. 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 market to the Midwest, with manufacturers such as Valentine. Diners were superseded in the 1970s by fast food restaurants.
Architecture
Like a mobile home, a diner is narrow and elongated to allow roadway transport (in the case of a diner, to the restaurant's ultimate location). 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 elements or copy the appearance of rail dining cars (though very few are, in fact, refurbished rail cars). Those of the 1950s use stainless steel panels, porcelain enamel, glass blocks, and neon light trim.Diners built recently generally have a different 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 roadway car layout and intimate charm for example).
Cultural significance
In television and cinema (e.g. The Iron Giant and Diner), diners and soda fountains symbolize the period of prosperity and optimism in the United States of the 1950s. They are shown as the place where teenagers meet after school and as an essential part of a date. In the television show Alice, Alice works at a diner called Mel's Diner. The diner's cultural influence continues today. Many non-manufactured 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 provide, in rather the same way that fast food chains do, a nationwide, recognizable, fairly uniform place to eat and assemble. The types of food served are likely to be consistent, especially within a region (exceptions being districts with large immigrant populations, in which diners and coffee shops will often cater their menus to those local cuisines), as are the prices charged. Diners frequently stay open 24 hours a day, especially in cities, making them an essential part of urban culture, alongside bars and nightclubs.
Manufacturers
- Bixler Manufacturing Company, Norwalk, Ohio
- Comac, Irvington, New Jersey
- DeRaffele Manufacturing, New Rochelle, New York
- Diner-Mite, Atlanta, Georgia
- Fodero Dining Car Company, Newark, New Jersey
- J. B. Judkins (Sterling), Merrimac, Massachusetts
- Jerry O'Mahoney, Elizabeth, New Jersey
- Kullman Industries, Lebanon, New Jersey
- Master Diners, Pequannock, New Jersey
- Mountain View Diners, Singac, New Jersey
- Paramout Modular Concepts, Oakland, New Jersey
- Paterson Vehicle Company (Silk City), Paterson, New Jersey
- Swingle Diners, Middlesex, New Jersey
- T.H. Buckley Lunch Wagon Manufacturing and Catering, Worcester, Massachusetts
- Ward & Dickinson, Silver Creek, New York
- Worcester Lunch Car Company, Worcester, Massachusetts
- Valentine Manufacturing, Wichita, Kansas
- Valiant Diners, Ormond Beach, Florida
Trivia
- Diners in a certain part of western New York State, northeastern Ohio, and northwestern Pennsylvania are sometimes spelled Dinor rather than the traditional Diner. The phenomenon exists within a roughly 50 mile radius of Erie, Pennsylvania. Historians have not reached a consensus concerning how the unusual regional spelling originated.
- One-third of all diners in the world are located in New Jersey, though many of these have been remodeled.
References
- Michael Karl Witzel. The American Diner, MBI Publishing Company, 1998. ISBN 0760301107
See also
External links
- [roadside magazine website]
- [Diner City website]
- [New Jersey Diners]
- [Coyne's International Diner Directory]
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