Diners

Origins

Diners originated in the northeastern part of the United States, and the region—especially New Jersey—retains the greatest number of them. Many Americans think of diners as streamlined stainless steel and chrome structures that resemble (or in some cases had been) railroad dining cars. Johnny Rockets, an American chain with locations around the globe, and Eddie Rockets, an Ireland-based company, carry out the stainless– chrome–glass theme, sometimes in dining car–like structures. That modern diners, at least since the 1920s and 1930s, look like railway dining cars has often led to the conclusion that the former descended from the latter. In fact, diners began as lunch wagons in 1872, when Walter Scott, a Providence, Rhode Island, street vendor, put his cart inside an enclosed horse-drawn wagon.

Scott’s wagon was hauled to locations where people working in urban offices could buy dinners from dusk to 4:00 a.m.—times when fixed-location restaurants were closed. The small wagon had cutout squares on both sides where Scott could serve food and collect money more quickly than a single window could. The food, mostly sandwiches and pies, was all made at home by the proprietor rather than being cooked on the premises. The lunch wagon was such a success that many imitators followed and then improved on the original. By the late 1880s, fully enclosed “night owl” lunch wagons that permitted patrons to stand inside during inclement weather were common in Massachusetts factory towns. By 1900, enclosed wagons such as these were further developed by T. H. Buckley, among others, [Page 365]and had full-scale cooking apparatuses in them. T. H. Buckley & Co. and its rivals built elaborately decorated vehicles that were advertised as rivaling famous restaurants such as Delmonico’s in New York City. The food served was nothing like that of fancy restaurants but rather quick-service fare such as sandwiches, hot dogs, egg dishes, corned beef hash (hence, another term for a place serving cheap food, “hash house”), and plenty of coffee. Lunch wagons were and remained mainly working-class eating places.

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