RoadsideOnline

Nobody but Doc Goode really knows why he's closing his diner. Unfortunately, he's yet to give anyone an answer that makes any sense.

For those not following this too closely, Doc Good, the owner of the Little Gem Diner in Syracuse, New York started making noises about six months ago that he needed to expand his diner or he would have to sell it and leave. Not long after that, he used the local media to announce his intention to sell his 52-seat restaurant for $399,000. As explained in a story run on a Syracuse TV station:

To find the root of the diner's problem, all you have to do is walk into the 52 seat eatery on a weekend morning. Every seat is filled and people are lined out the door.

"I had to turn away 60 people away that came and wanted breakfast," said Good talking about the crowd that waited outside his diner a couple weeks ago.

Am I missing something? Apparently in Doc's diner bizzaro world, he has a problem when every seat in his diner is filled. Most diner owners I've met set full capacity as their goal.

In terms of its diners, Connecticut is a true study in contrasts. It hosts some of the oldest and newest operating diners in the country. Diner hunters will find two of the oldest at the northern end of the Naugatuck Valley, in Winsted and in Torrington.

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Both Skee's Diner and the Winsted Diner made news in the past few years. The Winsted, a 1920s era Tierney suffered a near catastrophic fire in December, 2005 while its owner Bob Radocchio had it on the market. Despite its condition, the property did attract Jean Bauer, who moved in and refurbished the diner's severely damaged interior, replacing many of the surfaces with tongue-in-groove paneling, which actually enhances its Jazz Age charm. Jean tells Roadside that despite the economy and the competition, she's holding her own and she still sees Bob come in for a meal on a regular basis. And yes, she still makes the ra doc a doodle sandwich.

Like a scene out of the 1940s, the Red Arrow Diner in Milford beckons the weary traveler every day at any hour.

I added the former Milford Diner to my list of visited diners yesterday. Despite living all my life in New England and a good chunk of it only about an hour to the south in Worcester, Massachusetts, I never set foot in the place until now. Go figure. I passed by the little Ward & Dickinson several times, but never thought to stop in either because it might have been closed at the time or at one time I didn't believe it qualified as a true diner. The 1980s-vintage double-sash windows probably threw me, but had I gone inside, I would have immediately seen the venting transom windows in the recessed ceiling.

Now that Carol Sheehan has put her stamp on the place, how could I pass up my latest opportunity to pay a visit? Carol already owns the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire, and this move represents another step in Carol's expanding ambitions to land Red Arrow's all over New England by franchising the concept.

I know. I've thought the same thing: "Here we go again." In the past two decades I've heard from scores of impressarios all seeking to build yet another restaurant empire. "We're going to have a chain of diners coast to coast." Uh-huh. Let's see how you do with the first one. Two years later, if their first diner still operates, a second has become a pipe dream. For whatever reason, the classic diner resists duplication and the classic small diner has become a rare breed entirely.

Hopefully, this will be the last time I write about Jae Chung.

News reports surfaced over the weekend that Jae Chung got in a little trouble with the bank over a mortgage he took out for his Miss Adams Diner property. The bank apparently foreclosed and will soon put the diner up for auction.

I received a flurry of emails about this. Interestingly, one email expressed joy over the fact that Chung would finally release this forlorn and tortured structure from his grubby paws. Another expressed great concern that none of the news reports indicated whether or not the diner would sell with its contents. Though I haven’t visited this diner in over six years, it still retains some of its charms despite Chung’s many ill-conceived renovations he inflicted in a utterly mindless attempt to rejuvenate the diner’s business, viability, and reputation -- predictably with absolutely no success.

Since the departure of Barry and Nancy Garton in 2000, Chung could have installed a revolving back door for all the operators he’s thrown at this disaster. It went from a diner to a hot dog joint to a seafood restaurant and back again in the past ten years. In his last renovation, the 1948 gem of a Worcester car apparently wasn’t diner enough for his stunted sense of aesthetics, and so he stapled up 45-rpm records all over the place, covered over the original wood and laminates, and tried to make the place look like the malt shop set from “Back to the Future.”

Amazingly, Chung’s last occupant Ann Marie Belemonte started to make a real go of it, because, in her words, she “was going to make it a real diner again,” only to find out in the paper a few months later that Chung had the place up for sale without her knowledge.

Mr. Chung, good f’ing riddance. You took what was arguably the finest diner and perhaps one of the best short order restaurants in the entire country, and killed it with your ineptitude, incompetence, and inconceivable neglect. The fact that you seem to be experiencing problems at some of your other properties as well only solidifies my belief that when it comes to restaurant management, you’ll make a fine Wal-Mart greeter. I’d chuck a Lou-Roc award at your sorry self, but you aren’t even worthy of that. At least Lou-Roc’s is still operating -- as a diner.

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Originally published in 2007

Recently, a syndicated advice column published letters regarding tipping in restaurants. The range of opinion stretched from the stingy (“I tip 10% – period”) to the sanctimonious (“Restaurant owners should pay a living wage.”). The issue continues to rage in and around the industry, particularly as our economy shifts further and further into services over manufacturing. Like you, I work hard for my money, and I don’t make it a practice to spend it foolishly or needlessly. But when it comes to tipping my waitress, I have a philosophy that revolves around a basic truth: I’m trusting a stranger making $2.10 per hour to handle something I’ll put in my body. Why, then, would I want them to think I’m a jerk?