There’s nowhere in New York I’d rather be than at the diner. And by “the” diner I do mean interchangeably. I have a local diner near my house where I’ve achieved regular status (the owners know my name and my breakfast burrito order) but I’d be happy anywhere else too. I go to the diner after a great date and after a bad one. In the morning and at night. With friends and with enemies. Just kidding. The diner is for everyone. Nothing warms me up inside like generic brand ketchup, old Tabasco, coleslaw from Sysco, ice water in a plastic cup, and syrup that did not come from a maple tree.
Sometimes the question comes up of, what is a diner? How is it different from the deli? Are diners inherently Jewish? Is that just in New York? Are delis Jewish but not diners? Is a hot dog a sandwich?
I’ve given it some thought and assembled a criteria of what makes a diner, a diner. Feel free to add your own criteria in the comments and tell me what I’m missing.
A diner must have:
A menu that is Too Big. An entire page for breakfast, one for sandwiches, one for “house specialties”, one for griddle specialties, one that’s inexplicably just gyros, one that’s just salads, a healthy section (with grapefruit halves, cottage cheese bowls, egg white omelets and something called the “power skinny girl ozempic plate”), and a kids menu. The order of the menu should make no logical sense. It should be so extensive, so gargantuan, that by the time the waiter comes to take your order you panic and order the same burger you always get.
A wildcard item. Like, something you should not order at the diner. Maybe it’s pasta primavera. Maybe a broiled cod of sorts. Maybe, in extreme situations, something fucked up like Shrimp Parmigiana. Sometimes I think, or I hope, that diner owners add items such as these as a wellness check. To offer a way out, a red button, a cry for help to those in need. I assume ordering the broiled cod at a diner immediately places a call to your emergency contacts and books you a weekend getaway to Rhode Island. SNL had a sketch about how crazy it is to order lobster at a diner but if you’re at a diner with lobster on the menu that is not a diner. That is a resort. Leave immediately.
A group of high schoolers shit talking multiple “friends” at full volume. New York City teenagers scare me because they dress like they’re extras in Clueless but they were all, at this point, born after 9/11. They will all order something like french toast or marshmallow pancakes and then ask to split the check 8 ways. Do not make direct eye contact. If you don’t engage they can’t hurt you.
A Google rating between 4.0 and 4.2 stars. Anything lower could be a quality issue, but anything higher is a red flag. When you scroll through the reviews, which I recommend, there should be a decent amount raving about the people, the neighborhood, the consistency. There should also, however, be a handful of 1 star reviews complaining that the host didn’t kiss them on the mouth when they sat down. Or that the burger wasn’t made with A5 Wagyu. Hopefully one of the 1 star reviews will have a photo of their tuna melt that they ordered on Uber Eats and it will read “Ordered tuna melt and it was cold when arrived. Bread soggy even though the diner is only 40 mins away. Will not be returning!!”
Along these lines, the diner should never have a working website. Websites are for doctors offices and graphic designers. In order to find the menu (which you shouldn’t need to do, because you already know what’s in it) you should have to search through the images on the Google reviews and be led to a menupages or singleplatform black and white site. This goes without saying but if the diner has an Instagram page, run. A Facebook page, sit down and stay a while.
The diner is my favorite part about New York because I have grown sick and tired of Instagram restaurants. I used to care a lot about going to “Eater’s 38 essential taco fusion speakeasies” but now I just want to eat a burger and be unbothered. I will celebrate my engagement at the diner and I will toast to my divorce there too. I will continue to bring my friends to my favorite ones and I will always get a burger the first time I’m at a new one. The litmus test. I will try, if it takes my whole life, to visit every diner in the city at least once. I will live my life according to the philosophy that a meal should be half savory and half sweet. And I will pay at the counter and leave cash on the table. Happy Sunday Pillowtown, may your burgers be deluxe and your fries always curly.