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.
And yet, Carol Sheehan's success defies all diner logic. Her original Red Arrow Diner barely seats thirty people, and yet it has successfully served downtown Manchester twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for years, all the while providing a handsome living for Carole without burning her out. Anytime you sit down with Carol for a chat, you clearly see her passion for the work. In her employees, you see their respect for her abilities.
What you don't see is Carol flipping pancakes or washing dishes. Like any restaurateur who intends to stay in the game for years to come, she's properly and ably delegated those roles so she can devote all her energies to management and marketing the Red Arrow brand. The efforts have clearly paid off.
It takes only a second or two, but walk into the Milford Red Arrow and you'll see Carol's touch everwhere you look. Yes, you do see her trademark Moe and Dinah, the coffee mug mascots, all over the diner. You see the pies in the case and the triple-layer cakes as well. Most importantly, you see the same positive attitude from the help you see in Manchester as well as the same smiles on the customers. The simple formula for diner success that too few diners follow as religiously as Carol — good food, reasonable price, clean setting, great service — is clearly in evidence here.
I've often spelled out the many reasons why I consider the Red Arrow a true landmark. Maybe a little too much. However, I do so out of a desire to see more people open more diners just like these.
Her success with the concept bucks some trends, especially in New England. Small diners like this one simply shouldn't survive in this restaurant climate. One operator after another has told me that they can't make money with anything fewer than 100 seats. Also, across the landscape I see diners that famously never closed cut back their hours for lack of business or good help. The Red Arrow is (now) two of only four 24-hour diners in New England with fewer than 50 seats. (Most of the others are in Connecticut and they are of the large Greek-owned variety.) If you do open a small diner, you can't serve dinner, and you certainly can't be bothered with a wide range of desserts. Maybe a pie or two and some pudding.
The Red Arrow serves a full menu, plus a number of desserts that includes at least three fruit pies, a few towering cream pies, at least one triple-layer cake, plus puddings, eclairs, whoopie pies, and their own homemade twinkie-like desserts called Dinah Fingers. And we're not talking here about a place that acts merely as a transfer point for the Sysco. The Red Arrow serves scratch cooking. Every day. Twenty-four hours a day.
In other words, all those wonderful, wistful nostalgic stories about life in the New England town with its bucolic greens and bustling sidewalks lit up by the warm glow of the neon from the local diner beckoning the weary traveler at every hour of the day is happening right now in Milford.
Roadside has never bought into the whole nostalgic "remember when" bromide. We have sought always to find the great diners, stores, and other enterprises that shine as examples to emulate throughout modern society. One need look no further than what Carol has accomplished here. And if she can buck that most impenetrable trend and successfully franchise, she will retire a wealthy woman.
She faces, however, an extremely daunting challenge. As I've already written, a truly great diner utterly resists duplication and the roadside is littered with dozens of failed attempts. The best diners on my list all feature certain eccentricities, personalities, and qualities that would only produce poseurs in the attempt.
Given how much a diner relies so heavily on the owner's personality for its ultimate success, Carol would to need to find a few dozen of her long-lost twin siblings to purchase franchises. As I see it, her ability to find like-minded people who intuit the diner's nature will make or break this enterprise. Franchisees typically seek an off-the-shelf concept that will make a lot of money in a short amount of time. All fine except that in the diner business this almost never happens.
I will say this: If anyone can do it, it's Carol Sheehan. She's already laid the necessary groundwork. She's opened the first and the second diner. She's respected in the community, and she markets the hell out of a very good product. She's found and retained good people who work with old-school ardor, and a lot of customers walk out the door with smiles on their faces and plans for the next visit.
I can only hope someone shoots this Arrow into the Delaware Valley. I'll be the first through the door.
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