{"id":6918,"date":"2024-12-18T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T21:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=6918"},"modified":"2025-05-07T10:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T14:57:11","slug":"diners-deserve-a-comeback-by-andrew-shamailov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2024\/12\/diners-deserve-a-comeback-by-andrew-shamailov\/","title":{"rendered":"Diners Deserve a Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, for my birthday, I invited friends to a diner for breakfast. After considering several options, I settled on La Bonbonniere in Manhattan. It was cheap and dingy, and freshly brewed Folgers coffee was served, which the waiter refilled almost obsessively.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Breakfast at La Bonbonniere\u00a0<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These days, breakfast spots often swap a cup of joe, eggs, and hash browns for bottomless mimosas and avocado toast. It\u2019s hard to imagine the opening scene of <\/span>Pulp Fiction<\/span><\/i> playing out in a boutique brunch spot in the East Village. Ever since Walter Scott sold meals from a lunch wagon in 1872, the diner breakfast has been synonymous with hearty, affordable food\u2014the meal of the working class. Yet even breakfast seems to have abandoned the working class seemingly leaving diners behind for trendier breakfast\/brunch spots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I found myself on Chicago\u2019s South Side eating steak and eggs at Valois for just $13. It was a full cut of steak, two eggs, and coffee, leaving me nearly immobile. The interior felt like an outdated food court, where meals were served on plastic trays and coffee came in a slightly stained white mug. Even former President Barack Obama, who ate at Valois as a senator, app<\/span>roved it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Steak and Eggs at Valois<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At Snug Harbor in Los Angeles, an old-fashioned diner with booths and a clear view of the griddle, I was served gravy-smothered deep-fried steak and eggs with potatoes at 7:30 a.m., along with countless cups of coffee and a stack of toast\u2014all for under $20. The color scheme and Coca-Cola-bannered sign evoke a retro \u201c’50s diner\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Smothered Steak and eggs at Snug Harbor<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Blakeslee, Pennsylvania, Moyer\u2019s Country Kitchen <\/span>serves a Gravy-Smothered Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Toast, plus a cup of coffee, for $14. The griddle can be seen from your table, and the bacon is greasy. Upon entering, you feel like a regular customer. Compare this to the soulless, off-white, modern, interior-designed cafe that offered me an $18 egg Benedict, which I can almost guarantee wouldn\u2019t have satisfied me in the slightest.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Steak and eggs at Moyer\u2019s Country Kitchen<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are still areas where diner culture thrives, providing hard-working Americans with affordable meals. My uncle recently sent me a news segment covering <\/span>diner culture in Cleveland, Ohio<\/span><\/a>. Diners like Jefferson Diner offer meals such as homemade chicken pot pie for as low as $7. When asked who eats there, owner Anite Licate replied, <\/span>\u201cPeople from our hometown. They have been here, eat here, and are here for the homemade food.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We are only a bridge away from the so-called\u00a0 \u201c<\/span>Diner Capital of the World<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 With more diners than any other state (500), New Jersey is home to some of the country\u2019s best. As much as New Yorkers love to look down on the state across the river, our diner scene could learn from them.<\/span><\/p>\n

We should look to <\/span>Seinfeld<\/span><\/i> as a driving factor. Jerry and his friends would always linger around their local diner (Tom\u2019s Restaurant on West 112th Street), whether it was for a full meal or just a coffee and some cake. Most diners, which offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, were once affordable, accessible, and always open\u2014just like theirs. The <\/span>Seinfeld<\/span><\/i> gang may not have been able to afford daily meals at a trendy breakfast spot, let alone breakfast, lunch, and dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry and Co. also displayed the social aspect of diners; a cornerstone of the diner experience. Diners are places where you can sit across from friends, share a meal, and catch up without feeling rushed. How can that happen in a place I have to book on Resy? Not to mention the expectation to dress more formally\u2014what\u2019s wrong with eating pancakes in sweats and a hoodie?<\/span><\/p>\n

During a trip to Europe this summer, I experienced a diner-adjacent approach to breakfast. Meals there consisted of pastries and coffee\u2014portions a fraction of the size of those at American diners. Yet, people took their time to eat, lingering just as long as one might over a classic diner breakfast.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Yorkers, and Americans as a whole, are looking for a place to return to normalcy, still feeling the aftereffects of a time when gathering to eat and socialize was not possible. Americans want to slow down the pace with coffee, eggs, and toast\u2014and the breakfast industry should follow suit.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diners once symbolized affordable and hearty meals. With trendy breakfast spots replacing them, America has lost a vital cultural cornerstone. Here’s why diners deserve a comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":6938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6918"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7508,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions\/7508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}