There is Diner Culture in United States. It’s a feature of the the American Dream, along with white picket fences and green lawns and a dog and kids. It’s an aesthetic that fits the warm and fun feeling of the classic American road trip, found in photography blogs and Food Network programs. They have a deep cultural significance that runs deep in the veins of post-war America and there is a certain idea that people have on what a diner is supposed to be.
During the Depression, large complex diners were simply too expensive to build, so a new business of repairing and modifying existing diners blossomed. Small diners like Kullman’s “minis” and the Hickey/Gemm “dining carts” appeared everywhere. These eight-to-ten-seat dining carts were often trailered or placed on flatbed trucks and carted daily to specified sites, just as Walter Scott did with his lunch wagon decades before. Similarly, drive-in restaurants survived the Depression because of their affordable menus, convenient locations and wholesome atmosphere. New drive-ins were simple and boxy, but people came for good cheap food and fun.
There is something familiar that is found in every diner: the high pitched ding of the bell when you enter, the smell of breakfast foods and sandwiches in the air, big menu with more items than you can care to look through. Diners are a reliable source of comfort food and a comfortable place where time is frozen, as if it is still the 1950s, without all of the outside problems. Every individual diner will have something that makes it special, all have claims of the best burger or milkshake. And of course everyone believes that their diner is the best one. There is a certain loyalty you build from going to the same diner year after year. Some people may have the same IHOP or Denny’s they go to, but that isn’t the same as your own local and personal Mom & Pop diner.