i ate a crackerbarrel for the first time recently, it was awful,they need to change their frying oil every few years:}
There are a bunch of diners around here, mostly because they were made in Worcester, MA, by either the Worcester Lunch Car Company or the Pullman Car Company, both in Worcester.
The “Miss Worcester” diner traveled the least, moving less than 200 yards from where it was made, and is still in business today (google it). There is always a line to get in for breakfast weekdays and lunch on weekends. Stan might like it (I’m lactose intolerant) or the Corner Lunch right next to Tek Bearings or the Boulevard or Parkway Diners on Shrewsbury St. or the “Edgemere Diner” near the truck stop or Brophy’s Diner across from the truck stop (Seinfeld has eaten there).
Like I said - They’re everywhere around here.
Me? I’m a Granola or egg and bacon-sammich kinda guy.
On our 1,100 mile trips back and forth from New England to South Carolina, we often saw Cracker Barrel eateries show up on the “food” lists on upcoming exits but never ate there. We know what their food is like and we simply cannot eat it, plus you simply cannot get in and out of there in less than an hour. We always ended up at Subway and got something, um...., safer, for us and fast - something we could share with the pups, too. That’s important! The only exception was a Mexican place, “Pancho Villas”, in Fredricksburg, VA. Outstanding Tex/Mex, back before we knew we were lactose intolerant. I miss that place!
Alan Merklin posted:" B o o b " Evans here in WV seems to think a pancake that is raw in the center is A - OK. Then there is the little breakfast place that charges $5.00 for a single pancake but ..the center is, cooked.
I was an elder in an inner-city church for several years. Our pastor was from Wales, UK. I very slowly, and very carefully tried to steer our breakfast meetings away from Bob Evans (which he loves, and where he eats 4- 5 times/week) and to Steak-n-Shake... which at least doesn't cost $20 for 2 eggs and a bowl of oatmeal. I like the East Peoria S-n-S because it's got a terrific view of downtown Peoria... but alas, no oatmeal for the pastor.
I missed a meeting once, didn't call, and stood him up (like a chump)... and ended up as a sermon example.
We're meeting at Bob Evans again. 20 bucks for the two eggs and oatmeal.
Gordon Nichols posted:There are a bunch of diners around here, mostly because they were made in Worcester, MA, by either the Worcester Lunch Car Company or the Pullman Car Company, both in Worcester.
We sometimes get the idea, in this internet age, that every place in the US is just like any other.
Then sentences like the one above show up on my screen, and give me pause.
Clearly, a "diner" to you means something totally different than a "diner" to me. Out here in Hicksville, a "diner" is a greasy spoon breakfast joint, sometimes serving lunch (which is to be avoided). They are not housed in super-cool retro silver manufactured Pullman coaches. They occupy pole barns and light-use commercial structures erected in haste in the early part of the last century, and cleaned sporadically since. Old filling stations, a pizza joint that didn't make it, a zero lot-line place with a giant single-pane window-- places that don't add to the tax base of a place in any meaningful way. The good ones have plates that do not match, the great ones have flatware that doesn't. Bonus points are awarded if you do not have to actually order to get what you want.
Bonnie Cooper passed away a few years ago, but Bonnie's was a Tremont mainstay for the better part of 50 years. I believe when she closed up shop, two eggs, a side of bacon, toast, and coffee was $3.50, or some such absurdity. Not a single plate or fork matched. Every morning but Sunday there were about 5- 10 bachelor farmers (all 50- 80 years old) talking about crop prices, rain, Democrats, and the idiots in Springfield. Their butts were anchored to their barstools until 10:00 AM or so, unless it was planting or harvesting season. Bonnie closed up shop at 11:00. I never did see when she opened (4:30 AM, or some such nonsense).
A grossly underpowered exhaust hood was put in over the flat grill sometime after 2001, but it never did cut the grease haze. Everybody in town knew if you'd eaten at Bonnie's for the rest of the day. I think she painted once in the 90s. I didn't like it.
THAT is a diner to me.
@Stan Galat Exacting times in Preoria. 
Now that your a real elder statesman ,do you still go to B, Evans?
My inlaws used to like to go there while in Florida. Me, not so much but I like diners even if at times you need a shower to cleanse your clothes from the restaurant smell.
It is a lot better at least now you don't have to do it after coming out of a smoke infested restaurant in the smoking hey day.
What are your views on Waffle House and Huddle House ?
It was the best of food, it was the worst of food.
But food there was in such abundance that it filled a menu that stretched on for 20 pages - longer than a cell phone service provider terms of service agreement.
And all that food was to be found, of course, in a Jersey diner.
For right you are, Stan, the term 'diner' translates very differently depending on where you dwell.
When I worked the night shift at a Trenton newspaper, I'd slip away for dinner breaks up highway 1 to our local stainless steel and pink neon emporium - my weakness was the pickled herring at the all-you-could-eat 24-hour salad bar.
For no matter your vice, your habit, your addiction, the Jersey diner had your number. No matter how dirty you might feel afterwards, no matter how ashamed, they knew and you knew, you'd be back.
Their temptations knew no ethnic boundaries. From borscht to baklava, from pastrami to pistachio ice cream, from lasagna to lychee nuts. If you had a secret craving, they owned your soul.
Even the tacky architecture conspired against you. There was the lighted, refrigerated, and rotating tower of layer cakes and meringue pies stacked almost to the ceiling in the glass case judiciously stationed at the front door as you entered. You'd think about that case through your whole meal, and you knew you weren't getting out of there, no matter how much else you might shovel away, without dessert.
Maybe it was their location - out on the highway. No one you knew would see you driving up. You could order whatever you wanted and in whatever quantities in complete anonymity - the gustatory equivalent of a plain brown wrapper.
Most of them may be gone now, but the memory - like the heartburn - lingers on.
My guess is that Stan is a chilaquiles verdes kinda guy, but the pickens are slim in his home town. That is on of the reasons why he frequents Puerto Vallarta. Am I right?
A "Diner" is a restaurant operated by Greeks who speak Greek and which serves breakfast for a reasonable price 24-7 and also serves meatloaf, sphaghetti, veal parm, slouvaki, mashed potatoes, fish & chips, fried chicken, gyros, and alcoholic drinks at any time of the day or night (because it never closes) and also PIE. This is very important.
If it's a diner it has a brightly-lit, glass-enclosed PIE Aquarium with three or four or five slowly rotating carousels of pies including apple, cherry, blueberry and key lime and also coconut cream, Boston cream, plus black forest cake, coconut cake and several others. It's like a live lobster case; you point to the dessert you want and they serve it up.
Thems the rules.
Erickson is that greek ? Sounds all greek to me
David Stroud posted:What are your views on Waffle House and Huddle House ?
Both foreign to my daily world. I do travel a bit, and avoid both.
edsnova posted:If it's a diner it has a brightly-lit, glass-enclosed PIE Aquarium with three or four or five slowly rotating carousels of pies including apple, cherry, blueberry and key lime and also coconut cream, Boston cream, plus black forest cake, coconut cake and several others. It's like a live lobster case; you point to the dessert you want and they serve it up.
Thems the rules.
No, no, no. The pies live in a jewelry display case under the cash register, which serves as the front counter. There will be no key-lime.
The diners themselves can be run by people from a variety of ethnicities and religious backgrounds here: Pekinites, Methodists, Baptists, people from Kentucky, Apostolic Christians, even Mortonites (who were reared under marginal circumstances). All shades of people from "pasty" to "less pasty" (and everything in-between) are represented equally.
Marty Grzynkowicz posted:My guess is that Stan is a chilaquiles verdes kinda guy, but the pickens are slim in his home town. That is on of the reasons why he frequents Puerto Vallarta. Am I right?
I do love all Mexican food, and chilaquiles verdes are very nice (and not available in the farm-towns of my orbit), but they are not the reason for the Mexico junkets in the winter. Those trips are born of a desire not to hang myself due to a desperate lack of sunshine and warmth.
That, and the quest for perfect shrimp tacos, which are unavailable outside of the Pacific coast of Mexico. I found them this year in Sayulita, Nayrit. I'll need to go back next winter to confirm.
My wife and I take time every Friday morning to have breakfast together and discuss business and our sons. We have been on a quest to find the best breakfast on the Emerald Coast, and we are fortunate to have some great restaurants down here. I've been surprised that we have so many great eateries in a tourist mecca like this, but there are several.
If you visit Destin, Sandestin, Santa Rosa Beach, 30A, Watercolor etc. try:
Mama Clemenza's
Crackin's
Vintaj
for unique breakfast fare, $$$.
For the more mundane stuff, $$:
Another Broken Egg
The Donut Hole
For large servings of indistinguishable stuff $:
Waffle House (there's one every mile or two on all the main roads.)
IHOP (they are within one hundred feet of each Waffle House.)
Come down in the early spring, after August 15, or during snowbird season to avoid traffic, long lines and crowded beaches. The summer sucks unless you love crowds.
Beginning to find some interesting driving roads near the Alabama/Florida state line. If I can figure out some good drives combining the pine forests, around the bayous and swamps and along the coast, maybe we can put together a meet in early spring or early fall.
Man, don't you love a good diner/ greasy spoon?
And a good thread drift with maple syrup or gorilla snot or doublemint gum!
Yum!
Waffle house is for late night been drinking gotta eat something before sleep.
Real diners are usually Greek-run and as Ed described, open all the time for whatever you want. Mediocre ones are everywhere, good and great ones are few.
BTW, I found the material I was looking for...
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Like I said, we have a ton of Diners around here:
https://www.yelp.com/search?cf..._loc=Worcester%2C+MA
BTW: the Kenmore Diner sits on its original spot at the corner of Franklin and Grafton streets, but it has been under an overpass for the Worcester Expressway (I-290) since the mid 1970s when they built the highway around and over it!
And never a Waffle House or Huddle House to be found - those are more South and Mid-West eateries - I can't recall a Waffle House north of New Jersey. We had both in Beaufort, SC and they were right up there with Golden Corral and Bubba's to be avoided. But then, we had "Maryland Fried Chicken" and "Gullah Grub" there, which were both outstandingly good.
Not all of ours are dining cars, here, and those remaining are rusting away by the year, since they were all made in the 1920s - 1950s and dropping fast. Brody's Diner is at the only truck stop in Boston's Metro West and is a regular building. Food's been great there for decades as it has changed owners and names several times.
When I was in college (1970-74) several of my male friends would usually find each other at the "Night Owl" after our dates were dropped off. A great 24/7 diner on Worcester's famous "Southwest Cut-off" (actually, national Route 20) where you could get breakfast any time that was good, filling and cheap. I went there a lot, as well as the Parkway diner (a Dining car) on Worcester's foodie Shrewsbury Street which was closer to where Kathy lived back then. The Parkway was great, Mac's diner, run by Greeks and just across the street, not so much.
When we lived in Tiverton, RI, we had a breakfast/lunch place called Gray's (descendants of Pardon Gray, first settler of Sakonnet Point) that sounds like what Stan has in Tremont - Good food, lots of it, local farmers chatting with local fishermen and other locals coming in for coffee and their Providence Journal newspaper (Ed used to work for that rag). Great times, great eatery.
I just remembered something from my high school reunion last October:
Jerry Seinfeld did a "Comedians in cars getting Coffee" at nearby "Brody's" Diner with comedian Azziz Ansari when the daughter of one of my classmates was working there. Jerry asked for his usual Cappuccinno. She looks at him and says, "Ummm....We've got Folgers, that OK, Hon?" As they were getting ready to leave the owner gave them "Brody's" hats and cupcakes for the road - to go in Ansari's RV, I guess, and then Jerry talked them into an 18-wheeler
Stan!
Come and visit!
We can take Pearl over to eat where comedian royalty eats! Us and Jerry! (Maybe he'll show up in his Gmund coupe! - Not )
Just today, on the way to Home Depot for algaecide to get the green off my deck and roofs from our nevah-ending rain:
It's across the street from Flynn's truck stop. There's like a hundred Semis parked out back, along with the "Chapel of the Highways" rolling church. This place has it all.
Wish I could find a menu online (I couldn't) but trust me - If you like something and can describe it, they can make it for you and it'll be great, especially the coffee and Clam Chowdah and double-especially the 24/7 breakfast (because it's always 6:30am somewhere).
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Uh, Gordon? I believe that's "quahog chowda" about six miles south of your location, in Providence. Don't even ask me how to pronounce it though, I only worked there a year and that was a long time ago...
I'm a come east one (summer) day and take you up on that, El Gordo.
edsnova posted:Uh, Gordon? I believe that's "quahog chowda" about six miles south of your location, in Providence. Don't even ask me how to pronounce it though, I only worked there a year and that was a long time ago...
Before we retired this island, we were in RI for 6 yeahs. They're pronounced "co-haugs" as I'm sure Gordon knows well. There are many Rhode Island delicacies I miss not the least of which is the Awful-Awful, a milkshake the size of a mop bucket.
Another RI story. This southern boy goes to work the first week and understands about 50% of what is said to him. One of the office staff said she was going to take her daughter to the mall on Saturday to get PSDS. I stumbled around for a few sentences before fessing up that I had no idea what she was talking about. She said "PSDS, you know where they take a needle and make holes for earrings." Duh huh did I feel dumb 😂
'Eat at Joe's' in Redondo Beach
My Wife and I holiday often in Wells Beach, Maine in the fall season. About five years ago we were hanging out at the bar at Mike's Clam Shack having a couple of drinks and eating lobster.
The "local couple" beside us chatted with us quite a bit and mentioned he had recently retired from owning a business in Boston....Hood Dairy. He was a Greek fellow , obviously well turned out as was his Wife. I mentioned that I noticed the famous oval logo on milk trucks everywhere nearby. He said he had a least 300 trucks on the road at one time. A fair size business for a local guy.
Having been an avid sailor years ago, I did mention that the Hood logo somewhat resembled that of Hood Sails in Marblehead. He remarked there is a close resemblance but no connection other than their Wives were very close friends.
He said his Grandfather brought yogurt to North America around 1915.
It must have been Greek Yogurt
I only know one New England food story: My sister graduated from college in California in 1967 and was desperate for work to start repaying student loans. Her first job offer was as a social worker on Monhegan Island, Maine. She took the job and lasted slightly over one year. She said you could tell the poor kids at school because they brought lobster to eat for lunch. They were always trying to trade classmates for bologna, PB&J, anything but lobster!
Just for Mike: Rhode Island Quahog Fishermen:
Al Gallo has Quahogs ("Coe-Hogs, remember?) out on the Cape, they're smaller than back in RI. Hard to make a decent "Stuffie" with Cape Quahogs. The Portuguese make the best Stuffies:
http://therhodeislandstuffie.blogspot.com
And while English is the "official" language of Rhode Island, there are two others, Portuguese (Azorean and Brazilian, but they don't unnastan each udder) and "Cranston", that strange dialect spoken in and around Cranston, RI, the next town south of Providence.
Why Portuguese, you ask? Because the Portuguese (and Polynesians) were the best whalers in the world in the 1700-1800's and New Bedford, just east of Providence, was the whaling capitol of the world.
The official drink of Rhode Island is a "Cabinet" - From Wikipedia: "A coffee cabinet is an ice cream-based beverage found almost exclusively in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, consisting of coffee ice cream, Autocrat coffee syrup (only found in that area), and milk. The ingredients are mixed in a drink blender or milkshake blender." That reference to southeasternMassachusetts is solely the town of Westport, MA, and it ain't a true Cabinet without Autocrat coffee syrup, trust me.
But Mike, I'm surprised. You forgot THE best part of Rhode Island refreshment in the Summer (well, all year round, actually)....... Del's Lemonade! Best in the entire World.
Another good "Rhody-Speak", thanks to cartoonist Don Bosquet from the Providence Journal (Ed's old rag):
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Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Gordon. We loved Rhode Island (except for the amount of snow). People are spunky and have a great sense of humor. If summer falls on a weekend, it's great. I enjoyed Del's lemonade (reminded me of church reunion washtub lemonade from my youth). Give me a Newport Creamery Awful Awful instead, though. Yum!
“If summer falls on a weekend, it's great.”
Shhhhhhhhh........... People aren’t supposed to know that. In fact, we have perfect top-down Speedstah weathah from April through October. Bring an overcoat.
I ride through Barrington on the bike trail several times each season. We ride from Uxbridge/Woonsockét down through Barrington to Bristol, turn arond and ride back, stopping at Dell’s in Warren to hydrate 
and then Blount’s seafood truck for stuffies. Makes for a great day, especially when riding through Brown U. to check out the co-eds (a short cut to Orient Point).
Dave, Hood’s is YUGE! In New England. They even have the “Hood Blimp” that flies over/around Red Sox and Patriots games. All of New England grew up drinking Hoods milk and eating “Hoodsie Cups”, hard ice cream in a small covered cup. Any corner store or “Spa” (think convenience store with a snack or lunch bar) had a Hood freezer with Hoodsies and “Fudgecicles”. Your friend in Maine did a whole lot to make generations of kids happy.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled “Clown Car Update” channel. (Mitch, your check is in the mail, honest!)
Remember Gordon, only the first year is interest free.
And with all this Voh Dyelinn foodie tahk, not a word about Evelyn's?
Sacto Mitch posted:
Remember Gordon, only the first year is interest free.
And with all this Voh Dyelinn foodie tahk, not a word about Evelyn's?
+1 on Evelyn's although I have to admit that as I get older, my appetite for their fried clams exceeds my digestive tract's capacity to handle them.
Mike
Gordon, if you ride the bike path through Barrington you go right past our old neighborhood (moved from toProvidence to a 1 story when Marianne had back problems). I have bicycled that route down to Bristol and back Providence many times. Great use of an old railbed and a beautiful trip.
Years ago we got diverted down in Ipswich, Ma. and found ourselves late for lunch so we opted to picnic nearby with takeaway fried clams and a bottle of white wine on a public picnic table near the beach.
Francine gaffed a bottle of hooch and I ordered " enough clams for two" from a local restaurant. Kripes...$28 for the clams. By the time we sat down to eat we were ravenous but only to discover they were full bodied clams, not clam strips that we were used to. ( yes, I know ) but the Bride couldn't take the big bellies and we threw most of them out. Shyt. It was a quiet ride back up to Wells.
David, I know the surprised when you see those bellies. Probably just as well or your ride back to Wells may have been more, eventful...
Holy Smokes! How do you guys (especially, Mitch) know about Evelyn’s??
We used to live about 3 miles from there on Seapowet Ave.!
If you went right past Evelyn’s another three miles to Gray’s Ice Cream, turn right at the light and go down to the shore, that was us.
Evelyn’s had a kitchen fire just before we left Tiverton and it took a year to get permitted to rebuild. We had been regulars before the fire, like a couple of times each week so we were there the first night after they re-opened with their wholly new kitchen and dining rooms. We ordered the same thing we always got, Fish and Chips but there was a huge crowd so we got it to go and ate on our back deck.
We both got wicked sick from it.
We haven’t been back since.
Gordon Nichols posted:Holy Smokes! How do you guys (especially, Mitch) know about Evelyn’s??
Web got wicked sick from it.
We haven’t been back since.
We used to rent a cottage down in Little Compton and found Evelyn's when we were wandering around looking for food. I can't believe you lived on Seapowet Ave. Where were you working?
We bought the house on Seapowet from an estate sale (a Portuguese Batchelor farmer) around 1998 when I was still at EMC Corp. Moved there full time after I retired (around 2002) and left in 2006 when property taxes really took off (over 150% increase in 6 years - hot real estate market) but town services didn’t improve.
Remember “Paul and Al in the Morning” on WHJY ? Paul and Kelly “Williams” were our neighbors and we were at their wedding. Paul’s retiring this year after 26 years at “HJY”. Really quiet on the East Bay. Olga’s Cup and Saucer at the farm stand on Rt 77 was a hot spot on weekends. They moved that to E. Providence a while back and we sometimes take a “short” ride to there and back from Woonsocket.
We were in Little Compton last summer and very, very little has changed, thanks to the deep pockets of the Sakonnet Point Land Trust and the Hafenreffer family, although Pete Peckam finally retired and moved to Florida.
Gordon, sorry to hear about your misfortunes (and Evelyn's').
Used to follow a blog written by a guy who lives by the water on the north side of the bridge, about three miles from Evelyn's. He'd often weave local color into his posts, and the delights of Evelyn's became sort of a recurring theme.
Sounds like more went up with the flames than just kitchen grease. Wonder if it's under new ownership, or maybe another generation of the family inherited the business?
That does seem like a magical little place to live.
Driving 3 miles north on Rt 77 from Evelyn’s puts you in “North Tiverton” on the north side of Rt 24. Like a different world up there. The area around Evelyn’s is like a rural 1935, while going north of 24 brings you to Industrialized 2010.
Yes, it is magical down there and we both miss it a lot. When you see a rose-covered cottage in “Coastal Living” magazine, that was our place, even if it took ten years to get a mooring spot (but ten years faster than normal from my local volunteering).
Little Compton, where Mike vacationed, was a lot of Old Rhode Island money (we’re talking Mayflower descendants, here) amongst some Wall Street and more recent RI business owner money. It never really emerged from 1948. Think “The Summer of ‘42” movie and that sets it. What a wonderful place for a Summer vacation. “New England” at it’s absolute Summer finest. Especially the Little Compton Fireman’s Chicken BBQ each July.
Mitch, don’t despair!
”Flo’s Clam Shack” in north Portsmouth (over on Aquidneck island, also 3 miles from Evelyn’s) is still packing them in every day, with a MUCH better view of Narragansett Bay and great seafood. Come visit. We’ll hit both and then go to “Tony’s” for a “Shaw Dinnah”. Wives included. Speedstahs optional.