New (and final) Diner Finder available for order

Category: Latest News

Published on Wednesday, 29 August 2012 06:30

Written by Randy Garbin

You may now order the latest edition of the Diner Finder in print form at Lulu.com. In the Fall 2012 version, I made dozens of updates, fixes, and changes in what now looks like will be the last version I'll make available. The price remains $35.95, and for your money, you will get a beautifully printed, full-color listing of nearly 2000 diners we have tracked around the world.

However, like I said, I have no plans to provide further updates to the print version. It comes as no surprise to anyone that most of us have moved from the printed word and picture to onces assembled with pixels, either on desktop computers, smart phones, and now tablets.

Because of this change to the media lanscape, I'm happy to anounce that we currently have the Diner Finder iPhone app under development. I don't have much more to say about that at the moment, but stay tuned. And yes, Android users, we will eventually come out with a version for you as well.

The Diner Finder began as the first attempt of any kind to map out all the existing diners. In the first issue of Roadside back in 1990, we provided a map of Massachusetts that depicted about 45 diners. We would go on to find another 200 and print a couple of foldable maps for people to keep in their glove boxes.

The Diner Finder Deluxe map for Massachusetts, version 1, published in 1991.

Meanwhile, we started to sell basic regional listings for two dollars that we spit out with our laser printer. Eventually, we plotted out the locations of nearly every diner in the country, and could offer a full, laser-printed listing for $30 or an ink-jet color version for $40. Amazingly, we sold dozens of these hand-assembled volumes, and because of the constant changes we made to the database, I could almost say that no two were alike.

However, assembling 80 pages of listings into bound volume took nearly 15 minutes, not including printing time, which rarely went as smoothly as we hoped. So, when I discovered a print-on-demand service like Lulu, I thought I had hit a jackpot of sorts. Now, I could make available a full listing in a gorgeously printed, glossy, full color, perfect-bound volume — all for about the same price as our black and white spiral bound version!

To say that sales were disappointing was an understatement. I have to attribute some of this to the fact that we stopped publishing the print magazine and therefore stopped reaching our more traditional readers. Also, I think the print edition came along as the web matured, and more and more people found their information online. The fact that we began to provide the same information at the Diner Finder Online also didn't help.

Nevertheless, I continued to update the new version mainly because I loved having copies of it myself. All humility aside, I took a great deal of pride in how it looked and felt in my hands. There is simply nothing else like it out there, and every edition provides a snapshot, a census if you will, of all the diners still extant.

If you'd like a copy of the Fall 2012 Diner Finder — the last one you will ever see in print — click here.