Beloved diner closes after more than 50-year run
This classic type of restaurant has struggled as an American tradition fades.
Comedian John Mulaney famously mocked the classic American diner on a Saturday Night Live episode where someone (finally) ordered the lobster. The send-up was a play on how deep the menus are at these venues where you can get pancakes, an open-faced roast beef sandwich and (technically) lobster.
New York and New Jersey are famous for these everything on the menu diners. In many other parts of the country, the classic American diner offers a deep breakfast menu, burgers and sandwiches at lunch, and maybe it closes by 3 p.m. instead of being open 24/7.
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However you define this classic American eatery, the format has slowly become less relevant. Fast-food chains have made breakfast cheap, easy, fast, and ubiquitous. That makes diners less necessary and relevant.
Diners had been a staple of the American working class.
"The diner has been considered a model of culinary democratization in the American public consciousness since its earliest days as a horse-drawn food cart selling sandwiches and coffee. At the prototypical American diner, the story goes, workers and students and the unemployed could all rub shoulders with one another, as long as they had a few cents for a meal," Eater reported.
