Vintage diners

Loved the old chrome trailer diners, not many left now. The few that I can think of around here that are still in business have been added on to and you really cant tell anymore.

 

http://www.themessage.news/news/201..._Living_history_bustles_in_Bellows_Falls.html

 

Poor Miss Bellows

 

Early 80s



Now
http://4acesdiner.com/

 

I'd travel the older two lane highways when I could. As a retired trucker I'd seen enough 4-lanes. As recently as the early 90's when I retired we were able to go to quite a few old original diners and truck stops between Illinois and Florida. Most have disappeared. Even the local truck stop in the nearby Florida town of Chiefland remodeled Bett's Big T, changing the old wooden tables and removing the wall mounted push button remote jukebox machines.
At least much of the food remains similar to home cooked truck stop type. As far as I know on the west side of the state this was one of few real truck stops for many years. By the time we moved near the truck stop wasn't operating but the restaurant continued. Now and then a trucker I worked with or talked to on the CB radio would stop in for a bite and to tell trucker lies.
Sadly real truck stops and old style diners have been replaced by generic fast food areas in modern fuel stops.
Even the original Dixie Truck Stop not far from our Illinois home, oldest truck stop in the USA, is no longer on rt 66, but slightly off I-55 along rt 136. It''s been remodeled yet ramains as a diner and truck stop.
It all began as a one car home garage with two friends repairing cars that drove old rt 66. Hungry travelers were served sandwiches and snacks made by the mechanic's wives. The beginning of the Dixie Truck stop. Google it, I'm too lazy.

 

This is The Penguin, which was sort of an institution as a good coffee shop in Santa Monica, opening in 1959 (corner of Lincoln Bl. and Olympic...)



Well, it shut down some time in the late 80's, and was most recently a discount dentist office....



Well, word is....that 'The Penguin' is coming back! The owner of the Mel's Drive-In chain has bought the property, and is turning it back into a restaurant. Here's the article on it...

http://www.lamag.com/askchris/santa-monicas-penguin-coffee-shop-restored/

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We've got a couple of 'vintage type' diners right here in Springfield....

First, there is 'Fins' Drive-In, which actually has a 'drive-in' car-service feature, if you would so choose - or, you can eat inside. Popular local car hobby hang-out.


Then there's the Flashback Grill, which is just a couple of blocks east of 'Fins'. Lots more 'period' decoration inside, and dang good food, to boot.

Here's part of the inside:

 

Kroll's diner Minot, ND, We like popping in for dinner whenever we head out west and take US 2 across the Northern States.

 

Claremont N.H.

 

Here's a place I used to frequent back in California, Pancake Circus 2101 Broadway, Sacramento, CA 95818

 

If Pancake Faces stop patronizing, there are untensils available which would make it possible to have one's own face pancaked:

http://designtaxi.com/news/372830/A...-Make-A-Pancake-With-Your-Face-Printed-On-It/

 

When we were kids, we liked sitting down at these air conditioned Woolworth counters, escaping muggy Summer heat and ordering ice cream sodas

 

Ah, Burger Chef. My most favorite thing by them was getting a strawberry shake so thick, you'd get a headache trying to suck it through a straw. McDonald's 'Triple-Thick' shakes had nothing on these.

 

Appropriate bumper music for that diner: