The diner has long held a firm grip in the cultural zeitgeist. It’s where Sally feigned an orgasm between bites of a sandwich and coleslaw in When Harry Met Sally, and it’s served as the backdrop for countless other iconic movie moments. For filmmakers, the diner, and its plates of gooey grilled cheese and fluffy pancakes, is an appealing backdrop for storytelling because it feels familiar: a place with broad appeal that has long been able to breach regional, economic, even ideological divides.
Diners first emerged around the turn of the 19th century. “Often, they were converted trolleys or railroad cars,” says Paul Freedman, a historian and professor at Yale University and author of Ten Restaurants That Changed America, adding that the name nods to a train’s diner car where meals are served.
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“Originally they were mobile, like food trucks, and showed up at factories and other places with workers who did not have a standard meal schedule or who worked far from convenient restaurants.” The first of these mobile diners, or food wagons, can be traced back to Providence, R.I.
Luncheonettes, on the other hand, were similar in concept but more often found in urban areas or city centres, says Freedman, because they tended to serve an office-worker clientele and, as the name implies, to only stay open in the daylight hours.
Meanwhile, Canada has long had its own distinct version of the diner. Casse-croûte translates directly as a light meal or snack, but it’s also the name for the diner-like greasy spoon or roadside stand that has become commonplace in and around Montreal.
“Every small town in Quebec and borough in Montreal has their own classic casse-croûte, typically marked by cheap, accessible comfort food – think steamed hot dogs and poutines,” says Nicholas Gaudette, owner and chef of Millmans in Montreal. Diners also have, adds Gaudette, a rich history of being affordable to both the owners (in the early days, many were immigrants seeking out an opportunity to create generational wealth) and their patrons, most often a decidedly working-class audience.
“Diner, luncheonette, casse-croûte, they are all the same in my mind. … They’re the life blood of the working man,” says Beaver Sheppard of Montreal’s Ma Mère en Feu.
Sheppard (and his partner, Max Corsillo) are part of a growing league of food-world professionals choosing to open more approachable (in both vibe and price) establishments, instead of fine dining. “We do old-school quality diner goods for the people and high-end plates we would have charged three times more for in the trendy restaurants we used to work in,” says Corsillo.
Same goes for Millmans where you’ll find thoughtfully executed versions of diner classics (fluffy pancakes, eggs of every variety), but also a few more, as Gaudette says, “cheffy” items such as mushroom toast. “We are not reinventing the wheel, but we are greasing the spokes and making it even better.”
For many new-wave diners making it better has meant prioritizing quality ingredients. That’s the case at Toronto’s White Lily where the bread on your patty melt or sidelining your Western omelette is all baked in house.
Or at NDG Luncheonette in Montreal, where owners Sophia Khalil-Griffin and her cousin Dillon Griffin take a hyper-local approach to ingredient sourcing: The salmon on the bagel and lox is from the local fishmonger and smoked on site, and the breakfast sausage and hot dogs (which they dress with diced tomato, onion, relish and yellow mustard as an homage to the casse-croûtes they grew up going to) are custom-made by a butcher nearby.
“Locally sourced ingredients support the fabric of the neighbourhood we are proud to be a member of and being a more locally focused spot gives you the security that the locals will have your back in trying times,” says Khalil-Griffin.
And diners have faced trying times. In 2015 business magazine Crain’s published a story titled “Where Have All the Diners Gone?” outlining their rapidly dwindling numbers, particularly in New York. And the pandemic had its own dramatic effect on the restaurant industry writ large.
Lanna Apisukh/Supplied
Chef Caroline Schiff (top) and her baked alaska.Supplied
But just as fine dining has rebounded, diners have too. “As we’ve emerged from the worst of the pandemic, we now see a return to the routine, to finding our normal again, and that’s where the diner comes into play,” says New York-based chef Caroline Schiff, who announced this spring that she was leaving her role as executive pastry chef at the prestigious Gage & Tollner to open her own diner (with Tori Ciambriello, former general manager at G&T).
While New York institutions such as B&H Dairy and Lexington Candy Shop have endured, a new breed of diners and their like-minded counterparts, all with cross-generational appeal, have emerged. In New York, some old establishments have changed hands, such as S&P Lunch (previously, Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop) and Montague Diner in Brooklyn Heights.
Their reboots have brought new attention and crowds, many for their tuna melt and supersized, shareable grilled cheese (which comes with a bottle of chilled red), respectively. And Revelie Luncheonette (from the team behind SoHo institution Raoul’s) and the Salty Lunch Lady in Queens have earned buzz for their superlative takes on diner fare: At the former it’s French-forward classics such as a croque madame and a perfectly executed omelette, at the latter it’s newfangled sandwich creations such as the Chicky, which pairs a smashed chicken meatball with salty feta, arugula and charred onion.
Rising food prices have affected your tab no matter where you’re dining out, but a meal at a diner will be considerably less than at a fine-dining restaurant and that is certainly part of the appeal. Gaudette points to climbing food prices and staffing issues as catalysts for this diner resurgence. “Fine dining is becoming more and more inaccessible, but a diner is something everyone can enjoy,” adds Schiff. There’s also, says Gaudette, a desire for simplicity; just as much of a draw as value is a sense of familiarity.
“A restaurant attempts to be individualistic in what it offers to stand out, while a diner or luncheonette wants to fit into the customer’s preconceived notions of what they can get there,” says Khalil-Griffin. At many diners, you know that there’ll be a tuna salad, a Greek omelette, a solid grilled cheese, pancakes no matter what the hour, and that’s a big part of their draw and democratic charm. “That reliability is so key,” says Schiff. “People want and crave that.”
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Inspired Dining section.
