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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

Diners are wonderful, and very very much a metro-NY thing in this incarnation. (There are other diner types, excellent in their own ways, but they're sufficiently different as to be out of scope.) They build communities, too, and "Diner regulars" are a pretty ecumenical bunch.

Nearly everything I miss about NY has to do with food, and nearly all the food I miss is diner food: mystery meat gyros, the diner hamburger that's slightly too wet for the bun so you can't put it down once you pick it up, the right kind of natural-casing link sausages that snap when you bite into them, and above all, the matzoh ball soup: cure for everything. For dessert, rainbow cookies or a slice of pie from the glass rotating case -- and don't forget the weird chocolate mints on your way out.

A half-decent bagel, good pizza, and any bodgea's sausage egg and cheese on a roll round out my list of foods I atavistically seek out every time I'm within 40 miles of central park.

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"Diners are wonderful, and very very much a metro-NY thing in this incarnation. (There are other diner types, excellent in their own ways, but they're sufficiently different as to be out of scope.)"

That's a great observation. We have our own diners in the south. But the dishes you want are chicken fried steak, meatloaf, green beans with bacon, mac-n-cheese, broccoli rice casserole, southern pies, etc. Completely different categories and experience.

Though, I should have mentioned, some things in common.

Like competent, but sassy, wait staff. No diner puts up with your crap. Formica, pleather booths, tall laminated and fake leather trimmed menus, as well as neon seem to be common threads.

Food ties are strong. I'm lucky ebough to live in a region with great local fare....donut shops, burger joints, fast food mexican / chinese, mexican bakeries, sushi, boba... Most of them are practically interchangeable, but en masse they create a regional food identity and were I to move away, I'm sure I would feel a longing similar to yours.

(also, there are plenty more 'yuppie' (read 'gastropub', 'artesenal', 'fusion', etc. spots that are good, but it's a bit harder for me to feel such an attachment)

Don’t forget the bottomless cup of coffee and four ounce glass of orange juice :)

In my local farm town, long since swallowed by suburbia, a local "farm style" diner continues to chug along.

Very early breakfast through lunch. Closed Sundays. Despite the latter, and the proliferation of "weekend dining" with the change to suburbia, they're doing just fine.

There is definitely a community of locals. Including many people in the trades and whatnot, who still grow up and live around here while the surrounding suburbia is much more "fluid" in its population.

I've also watched other "farm diners" close, such as the one out in the farm town where I went to school. Changing economics and demographics.

They are definitely their own sub-type of diner.

TIL "ecumenical"

I assume you mean this in a sense of people from disparate backgrounds coming together on a common ground?

Is this even used in the context you meant it? Can you cite a text using it in a non-christian context? Just curious how the hell you ended up using this word lol.

I have seen it used as something akin to universal. See e.g. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ecumenical

But it definitely tends to be used in the religious sense.

In Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, the confederation of planets is called the Ekumen.

It's a good ol' Greek word with no inherent religious meaning, so it's nice to see it getting reclaimed in a secular context. I think the fact that it tends to have a religious connotation imparts a sense of solemnity to it that is quite appropriate in the current context.

"Ecumenical" also avoids the grandiosity and detechedness of "universal" or "global". Perhaps because its meaning derives from "home", it feels a lot more down to Earth and closer to heart than either of those common alternatives.

Similar trajectory for "catholic," meaning broadly inclusive. (e.g., She has catholic taste in music.)

I assume you mean this in a sense of people from disparate backgrounds coming together on a common ground?

Exactly. Diners and bodegas are common spaces for people from every slice of life -- and everyone plays nice, or else the waitress takes your matzoh away and nobody wants that!

“No matzoh for you!”

I think you meant bacon, egg and cheese. ;)

Oh man I miss matzoh ball soup. My wife (who is chinese) tells me that they have a similar food that looks like matzo balls, but the taste is nowhere close to the same.

My friend, the secret is chicken fat, shmaltz.

Try this, and I think your soup will improve. http://www.momfluential.net/2012/03/21/my-grandmothers-matzo...

Ah, so that's what schmaltz is. I've been wondering ever since I learned what this verse actually says:

  The white man had the schmaltz
  The black man had the blues
  No one knew what they was gonna do
  But Tchaikovsky had the news

I had read the description of schmaltz in wikipedia but that didn't really give me a very clear idea of what it would be like. That page perfectly illustrates it.

I might just give that soup a go and see what I can do. It's a bit hit and miss when you don't know the way it's meant to taste though :)

Hm... it is interesting that Schmalz only refers to chicken fat in the US. While growing up in Bavaria I have mostly seen Griebenschmalz, which is pork fat amd generally eaten as a spread on bread. I never acquired the taste for it. Now I don't even remember it anymore.

In traditional Quebec cuisine, people would save the fat rendered from pork roast, then spread it on toast the next morning.

Not many people do it anymore. I had it once and am not a fan, it had a strong garlic taste from the roast.

In England (I can't speak for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) we call it 'Dripping' regardless of what animal the fat was from.

Both pork and beef dripping are common (though somewhat less so than when I was a child in the 80's) still in the North.

Spread thin on toast with a sprinkle of salt it is amazing and instantly takes me back 30 years to weekends at my nan's.

"schmaltz" in that context would instead mean "schmaltzy" music – maudlin, sappy, or overly sentimental.

Oh my I'm gonna hafta try this! I had no idea what shmaltz was either.

As a west-coaster, your description of the food is exactly what makes me keep my east-coast trips to an absolutely minimum. There are a short list of survivable restaurants, but even the grocery stores are depressing.

It’s true. As a west coaster who lived in NY for years I found the “classic” NY food to be pretty gross honestly. The most pined about pizza and bagels are greasy and bland respectively. It’s a cliche at this point for West coasters to not get what the big deal is and you were downvoted as expected (as I will be), but I suspect it’s out of lack of exposure to west coast food more than greatness of NY food. Dinners and pizza are hardly worthy of discussion let alone praise.

You are not alone but the East coast has the media to promote their cuisine hence its dominance and over representation in US culture.

Why do you describe this as a metro NYC thing? I feel like every major metro in the USA has similar diners to this?

In my experience, Nothing in this article or your comment describe things I’d be hard pressed to find in most big cities.

I have not seen "the new york diner" represented outside of a 60-mile radius of central park, roughly. Western PA, NY south of about Liberty, Stamford area CT, and northern New Jersey have a diner culture which is distinct. I've only ever seen respectable bodegas in new york state, but you can find them as far north as White Plains.

I live in New England, spent a bunch of time in the midwest and southwest and pacific northwest, been in the south a little bit. None of those areas do it like this.

Pizza is a holy war; bagels -- I'll grant you Montreal.

I guess what I’m looking for is what makes a nyc diner. Like how would I know I was in one other than locality to Central Park?

Some promising signs. A lot of these are true for no obvious reason.

- open 24 hours, breakfast all day.

- At least three industrial-grade bunn coffee makers

- waitstaff primarily comprised of middle-aged women and 20-something men of the "working folks" varities. Normally, greek or latino. Normally lifers. Normally gruff but kindly. The owner is likely to be on the floor, and will inevitably be a 50+ year old man, normally chunky, normally greek.

- red formica tables are a plus, as are naugahyde stool covers that have seen better days.

- chromed steel backsplashes and a bar with round stools that you can sit at.

- Gaudy exterior facade, that was last updated in about 1995, featuring (ideally) columns and usually neon signs.

- Menu should be big and tall with plastic sheets protecting the paper, ideally edged in fake leather. At least 6 pages long, with an inordinate number of dishes -- of which maybe 5 are ever actually ordered in real life.

- A lingering greasy smell of schmaltz and pancakes and hamburgers and singed coffee.

- not so much now, but historically, one jukebox per booth

- "Diner" in the name, normally also greek references (olympus, zeus, etc.)

Bodegas are corner stores with completely forgettable names, the usual selection of beer and drinks and snacks and other gas-station-like foods, a newsstand that actually sells newspapers, normally phone cards or phones and whatnot. Goya foods in abundance. There is also a long grill that makes aforementioned sandwiches, and there is nearly always a cat on the premises.

I repeat, I don’t know that I’ve been in a town in the us over 100k people where you can’t find that.

This year I’ve been in diners that match that description in New York, Vancouver, Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis & Atlanta.

I think the biggest difference ive seen is whether their ‘greek’ menu is supplemented by Jewish/southern/polish/German food.

You just described Perkins, a diner chain in the upper Midwest.

So basically New York diners are available in rural Iowa?

I think good diners are available wherever good food is. My experience is that you’re more hard pressed to find consistently good treatment of vegetables. CA, NY, and anywhere with a good port or agricultural industry is usually ok, but I’ve had some truly sad experiences.

Think wilted salads with pancake syrup as the dressing (what... the...).

As far as Diners go though, I’m yet to travel somewhere in the US that lacks a good one. 24 hour operating hours is a very LA/NY thing. I’m sure they’re in SF, Chicago, etc but I haven’t spent enough time in those locales to know. Otherwise I’ve had a lot of variable quality food from 24 hour truck stops.

Maybe the best was a 24 hour sea food oriented spot in the middle of nowhere Indiana.

The worst was the Fosters Freeze on the 10, smack dab in the middle of the LA to Phoenix stretch. Simply horrible.

Oof, it’s definitely not like Perkins at all. Perkins feels like a chain, and the food is far worse than most diners I’ve been a regular of over the years.

Good diners have a gestalt that’s difficult to capture by just listing the characteristics of them. Diners are community hubs in a way that places like Perkins can’t typically become (though I won’t deny they have some regulars at least). Take one of my former locals, the somewhat famous Tom’s Restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Google Image Search it and tell me if it feels like a Perkins. There’s a ton of history there that you can only feel when you’re in the diner. When Dr. MLK, Jr. was assassinated, there was unrest in the neighborhood. Tom’s had no security gate, and neighbors (of all races according to reports [and the owner at the time]) locked arms and formed a human chain around the restaurant to protect it from damage.

See also this obit of Gus Vlahavas[1], the former owner of Tom’s, who was a face I saw almost every Saturday morning in my early twenties when I lived in the neighborhood.

So anyway, that’s my diner spiel. Tom’s is a pretty famous diner with a lot of history, but there are countless others like it in NYC.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/nyregion/gus-vlahavas-own...

well said!

Like the other commenters I've been to diners like that elsewhere in the US. The difference is generally in the types of food served. Lots of Jewish diners on the East coast. Lots of influence from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Ukraine and Russia. And lots of Greek-owned diners, in the NYC metro area and perhaps especially on Long Island. A diner in Florida might look nearly identical to one in NYC, but they'll have burgers and steaks, but no matzo ball soup or pirogies.

This is a heartfelt list but I think it actually misses the mark for what makes NYC area diners unique, which they definitely are.

The difference is the food. This kind of diner, which as another poster pointed out can be found from central NJ to the Catskills, has an obviously distinct menu from the rest of the country.

What is distinctive about it. Honest question. I spend a fair bit of time in NYC & have eaten at many diners. I honestly can’t describe a difference between them and the one blocks from my house in Chicago.

I’m curious what I’m missing.

My guess would be that the greek-run diners in Chicago (big fan myself, Omega all the way) are less heavy on jewish deli food.

You'll see matzo ball soup, pastrami, etc, but not as many knishes and latke.

Very evocative.

In Australia we have some elements of this but they're fading fast. Greek, Italian, Lebanese family owned cafes and fast food places.

These days labour costs mean that most cafes / bistros, even ones with a strong Italian theme will be staffed by newer non-European immigrants. Often no less good, but a different vibe.

Also, you'll almost never get staff older than 30 or so. The exception are highway roadhouses where the chain has out-competed the bypassed towns. So the older staff only have one choice.

I think some people are answering the question, “What are NYC diners _like_?” And it’s confusing to non-New Yorkers because those things do occur everywhere: One can find matzo ball soup and rubbery burgers and formica counters in plenty of major cities.

The second question people could answer is, “_Why_ are there ‘NYC diners’?” The answer to _this_ question is the real reason why people are so fond of diners and claim they’re unique to NYC. NYC-style diners thrive in the unique-to-NYC combo of...

- true 24-hour foot traffic from the city’s “never sleeps” thing, cars being impractical, and its massive 24-hour (lol, mostly) metro system

- an economy that supports individual-owned quirky businesses (for now!) with decades of history

- people having to leave their tiny apartments in order not to go mad, so you find more people from all backgrounds using the same few public spaces to relax, and more of these random communities of “regulars” built around nothing other than a shared space

- you can be almost whatever you want here and no one will stop you, so we accumulate more glorious eccentrics than elsewhere, and our diners fill up with legendary, cherished characters

- you’re often anonymous and lonely here so some people get into the habit of quick intimacy with strangers

As the article mentioned, diners are dying out a little in Manhattan. This because it’s getting harder to run a small business here (taxes/expenses/rent), and people might just stay home and watch Netflix to relax rather than go out, among other reasons...

But diner fanatics are usually just NYC lovers. I can’t imagine who would love diners but hate the city.

i think a factor is that a lot of New York small businesses, food trucks, etc. buy from the same local suppliers, and because New York is such a big market, it's actually viable for them to only serve one city. The most visible example of this is the blue coffee cups.

i'd bet those sausages come from a particular supplier somewhere on Long Island and get sold to many diners in NYC, and that's why they are so distinctive.

this is definitely true of the rolls used for the classic sausage-egg-and-cheese-on-a-roll. like, yes, I can buy a breakfast sandwich anywhere in the US, but it will be noticeably different from the New York version, and the New York version will be pretty consistent across many independent bodegas because the ingredients are the same.

You can probably buy a breakfast sandwich anywhere. But unfortunately, you can't buy a buttered roll in New England.

it’s absolutely true, but this kind of statement is why people get so enraged at New Yorkers talking about local food. without context it sounds like you are saying putting butter on a roll is a New York innovation.

I find diner food to be of very poor quality, and nutritionally poor too. Not good for vegetarians either. Some are okay, but most don't seem to be maintained properly.

there's a reason the article states "diner food is best consumed when drunk"...because quality and nutrition go out the window for convenience and good vibes.

totally missing the point here. this is like arguing Mexican street taco stands aren't vegan enough

But are they meant to be poor “quality”? Is that really part of the allure?

Mexican street tacos are not vegan but they are delicious. How is eating terrible diner food tasty as opposed to a cultural experience (which I buy)?

Someone in this thread mentioned bottomless coffee. I too enjoy that experience but as a coffee lover I won’t pretend that diner coffee is actually good.

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