Franklin Davis and his wife Linda run a tight ship at their Jessup, Maryland, diner. Maintaining Frank’s Diner, a 1959 Kullman “Princess” model, is no easy task, but the Davises have it down to a science. Frank has used his military know-how to organize and maintain the spotless kitchen. His everything-in-its-place approach continues into the storage area, where every item is marked and dated, regularly checked and restocked so that no favorite special or menu item will run out. As for the employees… (read more)

Railroad restaurateurs west of the Mississippi had a sweet deal in the decades following the Civil War.

Sometimes you don’t know what happened to you until after it’s over. My recent breakfast visit to the Red Arrow Diner, a small, L-shaped, on-site diner in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, was like that. That evening, back at home, I tucked into the piece of chocolate pie I’d asked for “to go” More-->

When I think of the more colorful facets of diner history, I recall the more testosterone-filled atmospheres, where hard-working men drop in for big, heavy meals, with a side of smart-ass bantering, simmering in a cauldron of good-natured, macho posturing. More-->

Otto Maier greets you with the sincerity of a fervent missionary. If you have the great pleasure to stop for a meal at the diner he calls O’s Eatery, you will likely spy him taking a few minutes from his duties in the kitchen to gauge his customers’ experiences.
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Not everyone has a diner in the neighborhood. With roughly 2,000 extant diners, and maybe two-thirds of those actually operating, the opportunities for most of us to go to a true diner have dwindled in the last few decades. More-->

Not all that long ago, the Scranton, Pennsylvania area represented a veritable gold mine for the diner aficionado. On my first trip into the area in 1992... More-->