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Just don’t ask him when the actual trolleys will return to the tracks on Germantown Avenue. The Trolley Car Diner represents Ken Weinstein’s support for Mt. Trolley Car Diner, 7619 Germantown Avenue The fact that so few pristine examples remain should give anyone with an appreciation for aesthetic and structural quality reason enough to at least go in one and get a cup of coffee on a regular basis. They really don’t build them like this anymore. My favorite diners get creative, while still serving up the classics and preferably with fresh ingredients.įinally, I go because I know that, especially within a vintage diner, I will sit in a space of uniquely American quality, craftsmanship, ingenuity, and exuberance. I want a good meal at a reasonable price, but I also want to connect with actual people–staff and customers. I go to a diner to immerse myself in the neighborhood, especially in a city like Philadelphia that still has so many of them, each with their own distinct identities. Out of respect for the people who run and staff them, I never refer to diners as greasy spoons, but I revere any sign that the kitchen expresses a love of cooking. I look for a good value balanced against the general experience.
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As a preservationist and a diner fanatic, I tend to give considerable slack to vintage diners, especially when they make an obvious effort to do right by the customer and their community. There isn’t a true diner anywhere in this region that makes them as good as Bob’s.
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This roundup features what I believe to be the city’s best and most significant examples of the the classic American diner.Ĭlearly, someone at Bob’s Diner paid very careful attention in omelette making class. Of those, around 200 were built before 1965 and are still in original condition.īut greater food service regulation, rising food prices, increasing labor costs, and operator burnout further endanger these cultural icons and once the doors close on these places they won’t likely reopen as something we identify as a diner. About 6,000 were built today, some 1,800 remain with roughly two thirds still in food-service operation. Most extant diners likely came from a New Jersey factory. Diner manufacturers eventually centered in northern New Jersey, where for a good 70 years they produced iconic stainless steel restaurants. They began showing up in every major city and small town across the Northeast. The wagons, eventually manufactured by several different companies, grew bigger and more ornate and semi-permanent. The diner has its own history that stretches back to the 1870s when food vendor Walter Scott in Providence, Rhode Island modified his horse-drawn freight wagon into something akin to modern day food carts and trucks seen all over Center City–a small vehicle from which hot meals are dispensed.įrom there, others imitated his success until Samuel Jones in Worcester, Massachusetts began building and selling more of these lunch wagons for others to operate. It isn’t constructed on-site, but rather brought to a semi-permanent location. Strictly speaking, a diner is a prefabricated food-service structure with counter service and tables. You’ll find only three stainless steel diners in near-original condition (Trolley Car, Silk City, and Bob’s Diner), and two more (Melrose and Mayfair Diner) with renovations that, while they could have been much worse, still stripped away classic features. Twenty-four diners now operate in Philadelphia, down from 30 in 1990 when I first toured the city (I’ve visited more than 1,000 across the country). Whether or not he’s actually improved on any of them depends on who you ask. In total, his restaurants represent about 900 seats. In the first decade of the 21st century, Petrogiannis also snapped up the Tiffany, Country Club, and Broad Street diners. While the the iconic Melrose and the Mayfair, both currently owned by Michael Petrogiannis, remain, the vast majority are gone. In the city, diversity and relatively cheap real estate prices in many neighborhoods along with increasing demand for an authentic cultural experiences allow entrepreneurial restaurateurs to set up shop and flourish here. Seen here in 1993 during a bus tour of the region’s diners sponsored by the Society of Commercial Archeology, the sale of the 1940 Paramount attracted a great deal of interest, but ultimately no takers. One of the most tragic losses to the roster of Philadelphia diners came with the demolition of the long-suffering Wayne Junction Diner.