Reply to Why do people romanticize diner food?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

They don’t make anything. They heat up and fry Sysco slop.[/quote]

Maybe at a crappy diner. Good diners make everything in house. [/quote]

Ok…but 99% of them aren’t “good diners”[/quote]
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. [/quote]

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.  [/quote][/quote]

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