Nighthawks at the Diner is the third studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 21, 1975, on Asylum Records.

[2] The album peaked at 164 on the Billboard 200,[3] the highest place Waits had held at the time, and was certified silver by the BPI in 2010.

[a] Waits opens the album by calling the venue Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge.

[8] Bones Howe recalled: "We did it as a live recording, which was unusual for an artist so new [...] Herb Cohen and I both had a sense that we needed to bring out the jazz in Waits more clearly.

"I got Michael Melvoin on piano, and he was one of the greatest jazz arrangers ever; I had Jim Hughart on bass, Bill Goodwin on drums and Pete Christlieb on sax.

"[9]During the track "Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)", Waits ad-libs lines from "That's Life", a hit for Frank Sinatra.

His next album, Small Change, would be his highest charting with Asylum Records, with whom he would part company in 1981.

[17] In its accompanying chapter in the book, Peter Watts stated that "although it could be dismissed as an entertaining conceit, the fake nightclub atmosphere of Nighthawks... possibly captures the appeal of early Waits even better than the two impressive albums that preceded it.

"[17] AllMusic reviewer Mark Deming wrote: "You could call it overdone, but then, this kind of material made its impact through an accumulation of miscellaneous detail, and who's to say how much is too much?".

[5] On November 18, 2010, Rhapsody named it the album of the day, with staff writer Nate Cavalieri noting that "Waits' meticulous persona is remarkable.