I live in DC now, and within the District, the greasy spoons or diners aren’t very good at even the basics. soggy hash browns, eggs come out wrong. It’s like they think just because they are down market they can do a lousy job. I don’t get it. For some reason, maybe because there is so much driving, both Maryland and Virginia have some decent, not exceptional but decent greasy spoons. The further south you go, until you get to the beach or the bayou, you’re better off going to a ‘cue joint – which is at least the equal of the greasy spoon tradition and similar in many ways.

There is a great diner outside of Charleston SC in Mt. Pleasant called the Boulevard Diner. There is another location south of the city on James Island too. Quite a bit different from the Long Island diners I know and love, but tasty as all hell. Sure you can still get a tuna melt, a reuben or a burger. But you can also get a fried green tomato and pimento cheese sammy or a chicken-fried steak dinner. And that’s yummy.

http://dinewithsal.com/pdf/menus/boulevard_diner.pdf

I grew up with the Parthenon Diner on Ave. J in Midwood, also a yearly ritual to stop at Roscoe’s Diner upstate on the way to my grandmothers place..damn, I miss diners!! And bagels!! and PIZZA!!!!!

But Kiev had good food and tons of it, cheap, all night long…and on Sundays, potato pickle soup!

“A diner is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially on Long Island, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout the US and in Canada. Some people apply the term not only to the prefabricated structures, but also to restaurants that serve cuisine similar to traditional diner cuisine even if they are located in more traditional types of buildings. Diners are characterized by offering a wide range of foods, mostly American, a casual atmosphere, a counter, and late operating hours. “Classic American Diners” are often characterized by an exterior layer of stainless steel—a feature unique to diner architecture.”

Without getting into scientific detail, it’s a combination of structure and cuisine as we both mentioned, traditionally in the northeast and derived from the old horse-drawn food wagons and diner cars on railroads; a lot of places we may consider a restaurant may actually be diners by loose definition, but then we don’t want to start any real trouble now, do we? (heh heh) >;)

Very interesting, indeed. Might I add that there are still quite a few classic diners (by architecture) in Manhattan, which was the Diner Capital at one point. The one that stands out the most to me is the Empire Diner on W22nd and 10th (closed). I remember the Moondance on 6th Ave and Grand before that was closed and shipped off to Wyoming, and the Cheyenne on 9th Ave and W33rd which was also sold and shipped. The Sky Line just up the block on W34th is a classic Greek diner as is the Tick Tock Diner on 34th and 8th.

There’s a whole slew of diners here in Jersey that are pre-fab and tiny. Most of those don’t even have tables.. just a string of stools around the main counter, and a string of stools near the windows–across from the counter. In fact, they’re called “diner cars”, which I believe is a play on a railroad diner car–and prolly where the name diner comes from in the first place.

Interesting…

[3] it is hard to find diners in the deep south. you can find some around atl, probably because of the influx of nyers, but it is really tough to find them in alabama, mississippi, tennesse, etc. dennys and waffle house are what often counts as a diner.

BTW, if you like Eastern European Cusine, go eat there. Amazing food.

Does anyone see a proliferation of truck stops in the South, or is that a movie trope? Also, in my recent experience, I saw a whole lot of Waffle House restaurants on the way to New Orleans. Maybe because of the rise of fast food franchises, there are far less diners than there used to be…