These outlets had been built by Thomas H. Buckley[a] but in 1905 he began constructing his own units in a garage behind his house at Cottage Place, New Rochelle, New York.
[2] The increased use of automobiles at this time meant that new zoning laws were restricting or even banning on-street food outlets, and thus forcing vendors to find fixed locations from which to sell.
[3] Simultaneously, lunch wagons were developing a reputation as disreputable due to the prevalence of cheap conversions of dilapidated horsecars, which were being sold off as New York's public transport transitioned to electric streetcars.
The innovative Tierney, who coined the word diner,[4] saw an opportunity: intending his static units to resemble railroad dining cars,[4] he produced items of quality using, for example, electric lighting rather than kerosene lamps and replacing the outside toilets with interior ones.
The brothers signed over all of their existing cars in New Jersey, New York and Westchester County to the company and offered half of its 500,000 shares to the public.