D
iners serve up a delicious helping of nostalgia when you head in for an early morning breakfast or a late-night snack. There’s the soft glow from the neon lights, the signs from decades past that advertise Coca-Cola or Moxie, the counters and stools that have seen generations come and go.
But these classic eateries should not be categorized as mere blasts from the past. More popular than ever, diners ~ which originated in 1872 as “night lunch wagons’’~ are still making meals for people of all ages and from all walks of life. Still, we’ve said goodbye to the bobby socks, poodle skirts and leather jackets of the early diner days. What keeps America going back to its favorite greasy spoons? Richard Gutman, curator of The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., has spent most of his adult life visiting diners and has some excellent hunches as to why these restaurants are still all the rage, especially around Worcester. “Worcester had a company (Worcester Lunch Car Company) that for 55 years built a lot of diners,” Gutman said. “These buildings were then rolled out to a site, ready to be stocked with food and ready to start cooking. They each have a feel of their own and personalities of their own. Some diners don’t even have a sign! They announce themselves by the way they look.” One of the diners created by the company was the Miss Worcester Diner, located on Southbridge Street in Worcester (of course), which was first used as a dining car showroom model. At the helm of this small establishment with a big heart is owner Kim Kniskern. “People come in and ask me if the diner was actually once a train car because of the way it looks,” Kniskern laughed. “It’s been here since 1948. I’ve always been a local waitress and bartender, and I always loved diners growing up, and then, my husband and I just decided to invest in the dining car. It had been vacant for about three years. I’m going on nine years of owning it. “ Miss Worcester was featured on The Learning Channel’s Best Food Ever show and was awarded the title of Best Diner out of hundreds of cozy diners throughout the nation. The Boulevard Diner is another example of the fine work that came out of the Worcester Lunch Car Company. Since 1936, the restaurant’s patrons have August 2013 | THEPULSEMAG.COM 7