Diner
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.
Diners typically serve staples of American cuisine such as hamburgers, hot dogs, club sandwiches, french fries, onion rings, and other simple, quickly cooked, and inexpensive fare, such as meatloaf or steak.
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.
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 copious foot traffic.
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.
The old-style single module diners featuring a long counter and a few small booths sometimes now grew additional dining rooms, lavish wallpaper, fountains, crystal chandeliers and Greek statuary.
B. Judkins coach company, which had built custom car bodies,[9] the Sterling and other diner production ceased in 1942 at the beginning of American involvement in World War II.
Like a mobile home, the original style diner is narrow and elongated and allows roadway or railway transportation to the restaurant's site.
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.
Diners of the 1950s tended to use stainless steel panels, porcelain enamel, glass blocks, terrazzo floors, Formica, and neon sign trim.
[citation needed] Many diners serve casual inexpensive food, such as hamburgers, french fries, club sandwiches, and other simple fare, with menus resembling those from greasy spoon-style restaurants.
In the Southern US, typical breakfast dishes include grits, biscuits and gravy, and soul food such as fried chicken and collard greens.
These influences can be seen in certain frequent additions to diner menus, such as Greek moussaka and Pastitsio, Slavic blintzes, and Jewish chicken soup with matzah balls, deli-style sandwiches (e.g., corned beef, pastrami, Reubens), and bagels and lox.
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.
The presence of Greek casual food, like gyros and souvlaki, on several northeastern diners' menus, testifies to this cultural link.
[13][14] Diners frequently stay open 24 hours a day, especially in cities, and were once the most widespread 24-hour public establishments in the US, making them an essential part of urban culture, alongside bars and nightclubs; these two segments of nighttime urban culture often find themselves intertwined, as many diners get a good deal of late-night business from persons departing drinking establishments.
Many diners were also historically placed near factories which operated 24 hours a day, with night shift workers providing a key part of the customer base.
The spread of the diner meant that by 1942 it was possible for Hopper to cast this institution in a role for which, fifteen years earlier, he had used an Automat all-night restaurant.
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.
[16] Diners provide a nationwide, recognizable, fairly uniform place to eat and assemble, desirable traits mirrored by fast food chains.
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.
