Pursuits: Elizabeth Thomsen » Diners

Supreme Roast Beef

Elizabeth Thomsen — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:54:01 +0000

Day 15: January 15, 2010

This diner was manufactured by Jerry O’Mahony, Inc. of Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1949. It was originally Michel’s Diner and later Chick’s Roast Beef. It’s tucked tightly into a wedge-shaped lot on Main Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The exterior is pretty good shape and looks original, but the interior (and of course the menu) has been altered.

Day and Night Diner

Elizabeth Thomsen — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:27:18 +0000

I travel around Massachusetts a lot for work, mostly for meetings, but I rarely seem to be able to take advantage of these trips to visit a new diner. Even when I know there’s a diner in town, it seems that they are never near enough to the meeting site, and I usually don’t have any time to spare before I have to get back to the office.

Wednesday, however, I really lucked out. I had a meeting at the Palmer Public Library. I knew that the Day and Night Diner was in Palmer, but I’ve never been to Palmer before and didn’t know where it was in relation to the library. A quick check of addresses showed that the diner was directly across the street from the library.

I was able to run over and get a few pictures during a break. It’s my very favorite type of diner, a classic Worcester Lunch Car Company diner from 1944. The thing I love about these diners is the perfect curve of the roofline on the short ends, similar to Deb’s Diner in Salem (Mass.) and the Boulevard in Worcester. The Day and Night is also one of those rare diners set on its lot perpendicular to the street — the entrance is on the one of those short ends, under that perfect curve.

I didn’t have time to check out the interior, the food or (most importantly) the coffee, but I’ll definitely make a point of getting off the Mass. Pike next time I am out that way to make a proper visit!

Day and Night Diner
1456 Main Street / Route 20
Palmer, Massachusetts

Worcester Lunch Car Company #781, 1944

RIP Mark Fidrych, Ballplayer and Diner Guy

Elizabeth Thomsen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:41:18 +0000

I was saddened to hear the news of the accidental death of former baseball player Mark “The Bird” Fidrych yesterday. In 1976, Fidrych joined the Detroit Tigers. He was named the American League Rookie of the Year and was selected as the American League’s starting pitcher for the All Star game. For a short time, he was a celebrity. A 1977 New York Times article referred to him as “the legendary ‘Bird’ of the Detroit Tigers pitching staff and the biggest box-office draw in baseball in years.”

But then he lost it all. His baseball career was cut short due to an injuries. He struggled to recover his pitching ability, and spent served some time in the minor leagues attempting a comeback. He ended his baseball career in 1983 at the age of 29.

He went back to his hometown of Northborough, Massachusetts, where he married Ann Pantazis, whose parents owned Chet’s Diner. On weekends, he helped out at the diner, serving breakfast, washing dishes, doing whatever needed to be done.

His mother-in-law, Nancy Pantazis, is quoted in the Boston Globe : “He loved it. Every Saturday he was there…He was a wonderful guy. I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law, and he’ll be missed.”

I never met him, but by all accounts he had a good life in Northborough, and didn’t allow his life to be ruined by regret over the way his baseball career had been cut short.

In a 1999 interview, he told the Boston Globe : “I got a great life now…I got a family, I got a house, I got a dog. I would like my career to have been longer, but you can’t look back. You have to look to the future.”

I’m sure he’ll be missed.

Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych, 54; Pitcher Enthralled Fans — By Bryan Marquard, Boston Globe, April 14, 2009

Modern Diner

Elizabeth Thomsen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:40:12 +0000

Modern Diner | 364 East Avenue | Pawtucket, Rhode Island | Sterling Streamliner, #4110

I finally had a chance to photograph the Modern Diner in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It’s one of the two remaining Sterling Streamliners. The other is the Salem Diner in Salem, Massachusetts, one of my favorites. These striking diners were built in 1941 by the J.B. Judkins Company of Merrimac, Massachusetts. They look nearly identical from the outside, other than the color. The Modern Diner was closed when I visited, so I wasn’t able to check out the interior.

Modern Diner — The Library of Congress American Memory site includes a set of black and white photographs of the Modern Diner from the 1980s, part of the Built in America collection (Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey, 1933-Present.)

Sterling Streamliner Diner — The Patent Room website has a beautiful patent drawing of the Streamliner by the original designer, Roland L. Stickney.

Here’s the Modern Diner’s twin sister, the Salem Diner:

Salem Diner
70 Loring Avenue
Salem, Massachusetts

“No Transfats at a Watertown Diner”

Elizabeth Thomsen — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:03:01 +0000

There’s a proposal to ban transfats in Massachusetts, so reporter Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio paid a visit to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown which stopped serving transfats three years ago. The actual story doesn’t have much substance, other than to report that the food still tastes just fine, but this is the second report Stevens has done from a local diner, and it’s just good to see these diner visits recorded and shared.

Capitol Diner Video on YouTube — Carl Stevens visits one of my favorite diners

Central Diner

Elizabeth Thomsen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:59:25 +0000

The Central Diner is in Millbury, Massachusetts, just outside of my hometown of Worcester. My aunt and uncle live in Millbury, so I have visited the town many times over the years, but somehow I never get to the downtown area, and had never seen the diner.

Yesterday I had a meeting in the area, and afterward I decided to finally go see the diner and photograph it. When I arrived, I was rather shocked to find it in this condition. I was sure it was closed and perhaps headed for destruction.

Fortunately, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case. From what I read, it’s going through a restoration, and I look forward to visiting it again and taking a new picture when it’s done.

The Central Diner is Worcester Lunch Car Company #673, brought here in 1930 to replace an older lunch wagon which had operated at this location since 1910.

Chet’s Diner : Northborough, Massachusetts

Elizabeth Thomsen — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:11:41 +0000

Last Tuesday I participated in a professional meeting at Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts. It’s a beautiful place, and I enjoyed walking around outside during the breaks to take a few pictures of flowers and statues.

But after the meeting, I headed off on a quest to get the picture I really wanted, a shot of Chet’s Diner in nearby Northborough. I have been wanting to get this one for my collection, but I seldom seem to be in that part of the state.

It was closed when I arrived, but definitely worth the trip. I never know whether to be happy or sad that a diner is closed when I visit. I hate missing the opportunity to see the interior and experience the food (and especially the coffee) but I do find it easier to photograph the exterior without cars parked in front and people coming and going and making me feel uncomfortable.

Chet’s Diner is a bit unusual, an oversized diner, in the Worcester Lunch Car style but built onsite in 1931. I couldn’t really picture it from the photographs I have seen. It has a homely simplicity and truckerish quality that I found rather charming, especially the big CHET’S DINER painted across the front. I liked the neon outlining the roof, and especially the neon Chet’s sign in fancy red cursive.

I Google it when I got home and found a couple of interesting things:

Chet’s Diner, Northborough MA — This is a brief (and probably unauthorized) video clip of the diner from Channel 5, WCVB-TV
Chet’s Diner — But this was the real delight — the Framingham Views blog has several wonderful old photos of the diner, taken around 1940. They are smoky night shots, inside and out, that look like something straight out of an old movie — very cinema noir! Amazing.

Capitol Diner Video on YouTube

Elizabeth Thomsen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:24:06 +0000

Here’s a simple little video interview Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio did with Bobby Fennell, state lawmaker and owner of the Capitol Diner in Lynn. It’s just a few minutes long, the camera work is shaky and no one says anything particularly profound, but I think it’s great to capture, save and share these little glimpses into interesting places.

“He’s hard at work. He’s not cooking up legislation, he’s cooking breakfast!”

Capitol Diner : It’s the Real Thing — My blog posting on this diner

Middleboro Diners : New and Old

Elizabeth Thomsen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:46:39 +0000

After a meeting yesterday, I took a drive down Route 28 in Middleboro, Massachusetts, to check out two diners. The first is Dave’s Diner, one of the newest diners in the state, a 1997 Starlite. It’s a gleaming silver thing, and although I took a few pictures, it’s way too new for me. But what’s really the cut-off point? At what point is a diner too new to be real? And why do I care? I thought about the kids who go there now with their parents. They don’t know or care that this is not a real diner, and when they grow up, this will be a part of their history, just as real to them as the Agawam Diner is to my daughters and the Miss Worcester is to me.

But the truth is, Dave’s Diner is not a real diner in my mind, but a replica, and I’m just not interested in that. So I continued driving down Route 28, and found what I was looking for — Sisson’s Diner, the only converted trolley diner in Massachusetts, a rare item indeed. And, unlike the shiny Dave’s Diner, this one looks old. The car was built in the 1910′s by the Wason Manufacturing Company in Springfield for the Middleborough, Wareham, and Buzzards Bay Railway. When the line shut down in the 1920s, Elmer Sisson bought the car, moved it this site and converted it into a diner. The current owner, Kiriakos ”Nick” Rentumis, bought it in 2006. He’s a native of Greece, and he told the Boston Globe the history of Sisson’s Diner was important to him. ”I came from a world like that,” he said. ”You respect old stuff. You can see buildings in Athens that are thousands and thousands of years old.”

Sisson’s isn’t exactly in the same class as the Acropolis, but it’s a rare and interesting example of roadside architecture, and I’m glad I had a chance to see it.

Old Trolley Diner is Back on Track — “Historic eatery regains its luster with new owners,” by Christine Wallgren, Boston Globe; February 23, 2006

Edgemere Diner Update

Elizabeth Thomsen — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:11:48 +0000

In a previous post here about Shrewsbury’s Edgemere Diner, I called it “an old beauty who has fallen upon hard times” and ended with these words: Meanwhile, the diner sits deteriorating on Route 20, awaiting rescue and rehabilitation.

That was last July, when the situation seemed pretty dire. To be honest, I thought the place was a goner, which is one of the reasons I kept taking photographs of it every time I was in the area — each one could be the last.

But the situation has changed dramatically since that time. A new owner, David Kupstas, has been found. When I drove by today, I was happy to see a truck parked out front and a bunch of men on the roof working on the renovations. Kupstas is planning to open the place as the Edge Diner as early as January. Initially it will open only for lunch, with plans to add breakfast and dinner as soon as he can. Kupstas says “We want to keep the diner atmosphere,” and I really hope that he can do that. I’m looking forward to visiting this old beauty as soon as it reopens.