Why do people romanticize diner food?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was it a NY or NJ diner? It's comfort food. The pancakes are fluffy and the eggs are cheesy. You need to order correctly - you go there for burgers or grilled cheese or a BLT....not a steak dinner.

And the atmosphere is part of it. The 60 year old waitresses who are the right combination of gruff and charming.

Omfg, I want to go to a real diner NOW!! There's no real diner here.

+1

There was one out in Herndon that was good. Not sure if it’s still there.

Virginia Diner? So good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to a Waffle House is one of my favorite things about road trip. Pecan waffles with hashbrowns -- salivating right now just thinking about it.

+1!! I just looked up the closest one and its 27 miles away from me! Sad day.

That's how I feel about sonic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I miss the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring.

You can go to the Tastee Diner in Bethesda or the Tastee Diner in Laurel.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have many fond memories of Greek-owned Midwestern diners with my grandmother, or with college friends. Haven’t found a great diner in DC, though Silver Diner is an interesting, healthier spin.

Those cases with the multi-layer cakes that looked so good. And all tasted like sawdust the worst possible cakes. But they had pretty much everything under the sun on the menu. Meatloaf, lo-cal diet plate (tomato with cottage cheese), crepes, eggs, pancakes, club sandwich, patty melt, etc. All was just ok, never amazing, the cakes were terrible.

I never understood those massive menus. How can one place make so many food items?!

They don’t make anything. They heat up and fry Sysco slop.

Maybe at a crappy diner. Good diners make everything in house.

Ok…but 99% of them aren’t “good diners”

Gather round, children. I will tell you about diner food. I grew up in a Greek diner. Spent my teens working front of the house. There is a balance in diners of making things from scratch and giving customers what they "want". Most of the items in our diner were made from scratch, but there are certain things that most of your customers want to taste familiar. And familiar to most folks means processed and crappy. Example - we used to buy large cuts of beef that we would shave on a slicer for steak and cheese subs. Our customers complained that they didn't like the meat, so we started buying the Sysco steak-um style meat for those and the majority of the customers liked those better. Same with the tomato sauce. People grew up on Ragu and wanted something that tasted more like that. I tend to stick to the greek-ish items on diner menus -- those are usually made in-house and the owners put some level of pride into those.

And if there isn't either a poster print or small replica of the Parthenon in a diner, I won't eat there.



Depends where you are. There aren’t any good ones around here.

Nope, they are all mostly garbage food. If they weren’t, they would be a “nice” brunch place and not a diner. Even the Greek ones in the Midwest. They might have a couple homemade items, but the rest is the same garbage talked about in this thread, fake syrup and all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring.

You can go to the Tastee Diner in Bethesda or the Tastee Diner in Laurel.

You might as well tell me to go to the Tastee Diner in California. I'm not going all the way to Bethesda!

[Anonymous]

I hate diners because they are always dirty. I would honestly rather find a 24 hour fast food drive-through and eat in my car than eat in a diner. I grew up in MoCo and everyone acted like Tastee Diner wasn’t gross. It was.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have many fond memories of Greek-owned Midwestern diners with my grandmother, or with college friends. Haven’t found a great diner in DC, though Silver Diner is an interesting, healthier spin.

Those cases with the multi-layer cakes that looked so good. And all tasted like sawdust the worst possible cakes. But they had pretty much everything under the sun on the menu. Meatloaf, lo-cal diet plate (tomato with cottage cheese), crepes, eggs, pancakes, club sandwich, patty melt, etc. All was just ok, never amazing, the cakes were terrible.

I never understood those massive menus. How can one place make so many food items?!

They don’t make anything. They heat up and fry Sysco slop.

Maybe at a crappy diner. Good diners make everything in house.

Ok…but 99% of them aren’t “good diners”

Gather round, children. I will tell you about diner food. I grew up in a Greek diner. Spent my teens working front of the house. There is a balance in diners of making things from scratch and giving customers what they "want". Most of the items in our diner were made from scratch, but there are certain things that most of your customers want to taste familiar. And familiar to most folks means processed and crappy. Example - we used to buy large cuts of beef that we would shave on a slicer for steak and cheese subs. Our customers complained that they didn't like the meat, so we started buying the Sysco steak-um style meat for those and the majority of the customers liked those better. Same with the tomato sauce. People grew up on Ragu and wanted something that tasted more like that. I tend to stick to the greek-ish items on diner menus -- those are usually made in-house and the owners put some level of pride into those.

And if there isn't either a poster print or small replica of the Parthenon in a diner, I won't eat there.



Depends where you are. There aren’t any good ones around here.

Nope, they are all mostly garbage food. If they weren’t, they would be a “nice” brunch place and not a diner. Even the Greek ones in the Midwest. They might have a couple homemade items, but the rest is the same garbage talked about in this thread, fake syrup and all.

Ok, I would say this is accurate. I worked in one too! They made a couple Greek dishes, but to be honest, they were then frozen and reheated in the microwave since they were not the popular items people would order. They also made their own Greek salad dressing and chicken lemon rice soup. Oh, and they shredded their own potatoes for hash browns. Then there was the gyro meat…it was the good kind that spins on the skewer. But otherwise, everything else was the processed or cheap stuff mentioned here.

My benchmark is the spinning gyro meat. If they have that, I’m down.