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Diners: The Most American Establishment? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody get this. Chuck and I will be back
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: on tour this January out in the Pacific Northwest. On
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the twenty fourth of January, we'll be in Seattle at
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the Paramount Theater and the next day, January twenty fifth,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: will be in Portland, Oregon at our beloved Revolution Hall.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: You can get tickets on pre sale right now use
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: our offer code sysk live or the promoter's offer code
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: true West, and then general sale tickets start Friday. We'll
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: see you guys in January.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: should Know, the Greasiest of the Greasy Spoons edition.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: That's right. May I have a moment at the top
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: here to speak to our layoff of last week that
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: no one even knows because the Stuff you should listener
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: were right on time.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I'll step aside into the wings as the spotlight zero's
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: in on you. Well.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: First of all, I just wanted to thank everybody. My
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: my we lost our dog, Charlie. We had to put
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: our eldest Charlie to sleep last week, and so I
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: wanted to say thank you to all the people on
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Instagram who were so kind, many many hundreds of people
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: commenting and many many thousands of people parting, and that always,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you know, helps out. But this was a tough one.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: You know, we've lost five animals now since stuff you
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: should know launched, which is remarkable. Don't you think you
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: have a huge bummer, huge bummer. But Charlie, it was rough.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: This was Ruby's first loss, and she insisted on being there,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: so we kept her out of school and the vet
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: comes out of our house and Ruby was there for
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the whole thing and she did you know, it was
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: devis but she did great and many many lessons were learned.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Man, that's amazing.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Chuck, Yeah, she did a good job. It was yeah.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I mean they're all very hard always, but I think
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: maybe being Ruby's first made it a little tougher even
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: she had. I think I've been saying it this way,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: which is when you have an eight year old, you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: hear all different kinds of cries out of your kid,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and they all have an agenda, usually right like I
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: didn't get this, or I wanted that, or I'm hungry,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: or I got hurt or whatever, like they all have
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: like a different sound and a different meaning, but this
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: one was brand new, and this was a cry of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: pure heartbreak and it was awful. So it sounded different
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: and it was not something I want to hear again
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: anytime soon. I had no agenda attached to it, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: then I think that's what part of the awfulness was.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: It was just just heartbreak. So it was rough. We
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: got through it. And I know I told you guys
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: this personally, but I want like the world to know
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: how amazing you and Jerry are for basically just saying
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: like this. We record on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two hours
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: before we were set to record is when we decided
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to do it, like we got to do this tomorrow.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: So I was clearly not going to record then, and
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: then we did it Wednesday, and Thursday rolls around and
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I still was in no shape to do it, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: this screwed up our schedule, and you guys were just
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: really supportive, like family is. So I want everyone to
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: understand that.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: You got it. Of course we wouldn't be any other
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: way because we are family.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. And now we are in phase three.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: The decision is phase one, which is awful doing it
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: is Phase two and now the not thereness is the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: extended just sort of muscle memory of all the you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the routines that are built into your life with a
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: pet that all of a sudden you go to do
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: and it's not happening. So adjusting to that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I was holding it okay for phase one and two,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: but you just got me with phase three.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's the little things like, oh, Charlie licks
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the cats spoon, so when you do the cat's meal,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: you go your body still goes to put the spoon down, stuff.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Like that, and then you just have to look at
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: yourself and sob well you do.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. I've been eating a lot of cat food.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: That's gotta make the whole thing that much worse too.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I have been sick to my stomach, but it's pretty tasty.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Well on behalf of everybody who knows and loves you,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: or even people who don't like you. I'm very sorry
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: that you guys could go through that. That's an awful thing.
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  Speaker 1: And I can't even make myself get into your shoes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I won't do it, So don't I am You.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Can take the mon you can take the month off
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: one day when when you need to.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to talk about that.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Now you don't have to, So okay, well, welcome back.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Now let's talk about diners.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's good we're easing into diners like it's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a warm bath, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, because diners, agreed,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: maybe the easiest topic we've ever done in our entire lives.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I cannot think of an easier one, can you.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Well. I mean I think we've had a lot of
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: stuff that's easy, all right, Like like any of the
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: toy episodes stuff like that is all easy.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. But this one,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. For some reason, it just struck me
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: as easy. It has like a lot of like a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: narrative arc. It has overlooked pop culture here there peppering
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: with it. It's got some neat little just kind of
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pull points bullet points that we can go. I just
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: like it. It's just easy. And thanks to Olivia for helping
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: us with it.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, and speaking of Livia, this turned out to
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: be a great assignment because Livia is sibling in law
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: runs a diner. Ember is o, Livia's sibling in law,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and they restored not only a diner, but they restored
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: the Wooster lunch car number seven sixty five man from
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: all the way back in nineteen thirty nine. And that
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: will all make sense what that is shortly, Yeah, it'll
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: be and super impressive. But this is in Moran. It's
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the Moran Square Diner in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And this thing
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: is awesome and the genuine article, and they serve you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: like a diner food but updated and not fancy. But
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just sort of a more modern telling,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: like there's some vegan options and from local farms, just
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: sort of elevated diner food. Right, So guys, say hi
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to Ember.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, Ember and the diner. I know we're all
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: be eating next time. I'm in Fitchburg.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I know where's Pitchburg.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, But what's the name of it? Again?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Tell everybody so they can.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Go there in the square or for all I know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: it's the Moran Square Diner. Mrin.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's great. Yeah, thanks to Livia for helping us
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: with this one. Thanks to her family members for keeping
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the diner thing going. And really, chuck if you want
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to thank anybody, I feel like we have to thank
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Walter Scott.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So Walter Scott. The reason we're thanking him is he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: is a printer for Providence, Rhode Island. And this was
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: at the time where people who were in one profession
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: could break into completely other professions. It's just what they
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: did back then in the.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Nineteenth century, not like today.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: No, not like today. You like, keep your head down
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and stay in your lane. That's what you do, that's right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So Walter Scott decided that there was a whole market
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that was being missed. That there were people who worked
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the late shift and when they were either going into
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: or coming off of that shift, the restaurants weren't open.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: There was nowhere for them to get food. They didn't
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: have cafeterias that were They were totally esked, you know.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So he said, I'm going to start selling food to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: these people, and the best way to do that is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: to just sell it out of a horse and carriage.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, which was essentially a food truck.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: They called him lunch Wagons and he got copped pretty
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: quick or imitated, I guess, because people, you know, back then,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: ingenuity and starting a new business was all the rage.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So it's a guy named Sam Jones who said, all right,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to start up my own late night food
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: truck wagon. I'm going to name it the Owl. It's
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: going to be in what's the Mass And.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Walter Scott was like, oh, I hadn't thought of naming it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty good name too for a late
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: night eatery, for sure. And that was imitated and people,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: you know, it was a bible business all of a sudden.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Jones expanded his own enterprise in eighteen eighty seven by saying, hey,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: let's go ahead and make one of these that actually
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: has a kitchen and maybe a few spots at a
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: counter where you can eat. No servers yet at this point,
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  Speaker 2: it's just like people got their food through a window.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And then he started adding more and more carts, and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: then he moved to Springfield, added more carts there, and
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: it was a legit business at that point.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So between eighteen seventy two and by eighteen ninety one,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the concept had been born, added upon and then was
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: patented in eighteen ninety one by a guy named Charles Palmer,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and Charles Palmer bought Sam Jones's wooster setup. When Sam
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Jones moved to Springfield, and he's the one who patented it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: He said, I don't know why you didn't do this,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to patent it. And his design was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: extremely simple, but he added a counter, so now there
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: was a separation between the kitchen and where you sat
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: inside the dining area like in the actual diner. He
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: added those windows, or at least he patented those windows
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that you handed food to other people who were just
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: taking it to go. Just the barest minimum of an idea.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: He went and patented it. But it eventually became Diners.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is the reason it became Diners was
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: not from like some normal evolution. It was from social
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: pressures instead that basically took these mobile food trucks and said, hey,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: take the wheels off of those things. Guys.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well what happened was, you know, this was
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: such a viable business model for people opening these And
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: this is what happens a lot of times with early
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: sort of innovations is then you innovate around it. So
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: companies that manufactured like buildings and things and as you'll
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: see railroad cars, they saw that people were doing this
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: in little structures, and they said, well, we're going to
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: start manufacturing these little food wagons and just selling them
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to people, these boxes on wheels with little kitchens. Yeah,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and maybe we'll make them kind of cool looking on
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the outside and paint them so they're sthetically pleasing, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: we can ship them. We can ship them on trains.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: They're small enough at this point where you can put
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: them on a truck if you need to. And there
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: were three big builders of these at the time. The
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Wooster Lunch Car and Carriage Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: this is a Massachusetts and then there was one in
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: New Jersey called the Jerry O. Mahoney Company, and then
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the PJ. Tyranny Company in New York building these sort
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: of made to order little restaurants that you can just
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: PLoP down and start working on.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like you said, the Marin Square Diner Olivia's
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Relatives Diner in Fitchburg, they redid or refurbished a Worcester
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company prefab.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and number seven sixty five.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some still around, not just from that company,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: but it seems like there's a lot of Jerry o'
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: mahoney's still around and in operation. Like they built these
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: things solid. As a matter of fact, one of them,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I think it might have been PJ. Tierney said, if
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: there's something wrong with it, or your thing starts coming apart,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: put it back on a train, ship it to us.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: We'll tune it up and send it back to you,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: which I mean, and then he was like, nobody's going
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to do it, No, exactly, Like I can't imagine anyone
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: took them up on it. I mean, what a pain
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that would be. But it kind of goes to show
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: like they stood behind their caftsmanship and just the fact
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that these things have been around for one hundred years.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Some of them haven't even been refurbished. Yeah, that you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: they did a good job making. I'm I guess, is
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. And then kind of what you were talking
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: about in the early twentieth century, you know, you start
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: parking these lunch wagons everywhere, a couple of things are
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: going to happen. Restaurants nearby are going to say, hey,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, what the heck? These people can just
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: move all over town and serve wherever they want. That's
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: no good for us, and then people that lived in
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: these towns and some of them they're like, I don't
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: like these things moving all over the place and parking
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: on the street. So they just started to park it
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: where they were and just serve food from one place.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And in nineteen thirteen, with the Jerry o' mahoney company,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: they started producing sort of the same thing, a prefab restaurant,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: but this time they were made to just sit there.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Right. They were about twenty six feet long, which is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: really specific.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it was very specific.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And I think Jerry o' mahoney, I think it was no.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Patrick Tierney was the one who took this idea when
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: they started making them stationary, and it was like, let's
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: dress these up a little bit. So like if you
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: look at some of the old ones that are still around,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: like they have like handlaid tile, the wood sometimes has
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: like carvings in it. They're pretty neat. They're very cool
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: look and they look super nineteen twenties. Even. I think
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: there's one called Casey's. I can't remember where it is.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I think it'll come up later. Where like that. The
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: light fixtures are original to it too. But this whole
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: thing was like it was a diner that it came
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to you, the diner owner, on a train car and
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: then was taken to your location and set up and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you would hook water up to it and gas up
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to it, bring in your appliances and just open your
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: doors and start serving hash browns.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I guess, or at the very least hash.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how you made your initial money, I think.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: So the deal with why they're called diners is very
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: simple is because they were shipped on these trains. In
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: order to fit on the trains, they were shaped like
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: railroad cars and they essentially were modeled after railroad dining cars.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So they called them diners like the diner car on
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a train, and they, you know, were sort of smoothly
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: curved for aerodynamics, and like you said, Tierney came along
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and added some like chrome and this is in the
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirties when that Art Deco thing was happening. And
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: so that's why you know the diners, the sort of
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the class diner that you think of has that chrome
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: look and neon and these padded benches and built in
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: boosts is all modeled after these cool trains, and they're
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: dining cars at the time.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: If I remember correctly from our Googie episode though that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: streamline modern look, yeah that you think of with the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: classic diner that was modeled on the trains of the time.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I think the trains were actually modeled on ships. I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: think the ships were the ones that originally, oh really
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: had that look. Yeah, and then it was taken from
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that for buildings and trains and diners eventually.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you may have been thinking of Mickey's because
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Libya listed Mickey's Diner in Saint Paul, Minnesota is one
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of the O Mahoney ones, And just do yourself a
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: favor and look this thing up at some point if
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: you're listening, because the Mickeys Diner in Saint Paul is
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: beautiful and gorgeous and a kind of a perfect quintessential
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: example of these shipped pre ab restaurants.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I think I think the one I'm talking about is
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Casey's Diner and Natick Okay, I think that's the one.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: You're all gorgeous though.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: They are, and that's the one that still has like
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Handley tile and it looks like the original like light
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: fixtures and all that. There's still some pea in the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: toilet from the very first customer, like it is authentic.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Should we take a break?
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I think so?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Now, all right, somebody at Casey's needs to instagrab that
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: toilet and we'll be right back.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So we have like a oh, we're back by the way, Chuck,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: just stuy. I know it's been a minute since we recorded.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But the kind of view that we have of diners
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: today is set in time, as we'll see, and it's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: set in a certain period of time. But prior to that,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: there was a pretty different view of diners, and it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was that it was like basically a working man's place
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to get grub, and that very much grew out of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: where diners originated. They served food grub to working men,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and you didn't have to basically be particularly genteel or
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: mannerly to go to a diner. So diners started to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: get reputations as places where, you know, if you're a
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: middle class man or a woman of any kind, you
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: would probably steer clear of diners. Up until about World
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: War two, that's the reputation that they had. Even as
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: cool as they looked, you didn't really go there unless
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you were like a blue collar dude. Essentially, there were,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of course, people who would kind of break custom and go.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, that's kind of what they
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: regarded as that kind of place like a Dave and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Busters today.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Right, you know my beef with Dave and Busters is
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: when was the last time you went in one? Or
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: have you ever?
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Oh? I have, it's been a really long time.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: There aren't enough just regular arcade games. I think it's
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: weird now like they have it. Yeah, they'll have like
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: a pac Man, but it's on a fifteen foot screen.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: They just need an area, you know, a little bit
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: for the for our generation who are taking children and
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: stuff to where you know, dad wants to play a
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: little galaga and dad can't.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm totally with you, man.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Anyway, kids love them. They don't know what a galagh is.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: No, they're done.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So the menus at this time were not the most expansive.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I know these days are kind of known like you
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: go into a good Greek diner and there's like nine
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: pages of things. You'd get a pot roast, or you
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: can get an omelet. But back then it was kind
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: of grab and go, or you would eat kind of
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: quick because you got to get back to your shift,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: or if you didn't have to get back to your shift.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: You just ate and kind of hung around and maybe
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: gambled a little bit or something like that.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: It was like the local diner. Yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Probably it was like you know what you would imagine,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: like eggs and you know, stuff like that. It's real satisfying,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: maybe a sandwich, but pretty limited. They were generally owned
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and frequented at the time by second generation, maybe first
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: generation European immigrants. So you might also find some sort
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: of local to their place in Europe stuff like you
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: might find spaghetti or a goulash or something like that,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: along with some American style stuff.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the fact that you can find the best
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: bakleva in America at diners is it follows in that
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: tradition because so many diners are owned by Greek immigrant families.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, should we go ahead and talk about that?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Why not? Because apparently there was a point in time,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: if it's not still going on, where Greek immigrants basically
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: ran the show as far as diners went in the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: entire United States.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the Livia found one source that said
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: ninety percent of diner owners in the US were Greek,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: and not only that, they were from the island of
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Carpathos or Carpathos. I'm not sure that they pronounced it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going with Carpathos Carpathos.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: What I say, Pathos Carpathos.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I think that's where Balki came from. Uh.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And there were a couple of waves of these immigrations
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: the early twentieth century. They would own coffee shops and
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Greek neighborhoods. But the diners that we're thinking of today
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: happened after an influx of Greek immigrants in nineteen sixty five.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And like a lot of businesses is sort of where
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: you might think, like, wait, it seems like a lot
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of people from this country run this kind of business.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: It's because they come here, they run it. Their family
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: works there, and then the son or daughter maybe splinters
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: often opens one and some of their family might come
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: over and cousins and work there, right, And it's just
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: it's a family business, and it expands in such a
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: way where all of a sudden, ninety percent of them
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: are Greek diners.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It also explains that those coffee cups that were
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: huge in the late twentieth century in New York that
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: were blue with white lettering and kind of like a
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: classic Greek style because the Greek's owned the diners. It's
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: just as simple as that, which I'd know the Broadway
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: diner that used to be here in Atlanta that was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: definitely owned by Greek people. There's one on not Holcombe Bridge.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: What's the other bridge that's done off of Piedmont that
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Cheshire Bridge. I can't remember the name of that diner,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: but that's owned by Greek people. These are like, I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: know what you mean, quality diners too, by the way,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but I don't think I've been in a diner that
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: didn't at least show its Greek roots by offering like
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: baclava or euros or something like that. And maybe even
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: my life, I don't think I've been in a diner
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that wasn't a chain, that wasn't owned clearly by a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Greek family. Yeah, so at that ninety percent checks out,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Anecdotally, at
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: least I agree.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So post World War Two, we kind of brought you
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: up to World War two and what it was like.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: WW two brought all kinds of changes to America, a
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: couple of which were really important as far as diners
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: were concerned. One was people, you know, that was sort
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: of an economic boom, so people had a little bit
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: more money to eat out at restaurants, which wasn't a
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: huge thing prior to that. And the other thing that
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: happened was suburbia kind of started happening, which included one,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: families moving to suburbia and two big you know, facilities
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: and factories and plants in suburbia. But they had their
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: own cafeterias, right, so their markets were sort of declining
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: in one way. But at the same time, these middle
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: class families started coming out and they wanted to eat
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: in these diners, and so they made changes to sort
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: of accommodate for that.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were so lucky because their market just bottomed
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: out like almost overnight after the war. And the fact
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that they were able to just kind of adapt and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: change their whole jam and be successful again, that's hats
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: off to them. But the way that they were able
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to kind of find another market was that those families
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that had more money to eat out. And interestingly, I
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought about this, but a lot of women entered
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the workforce for the first time in World War two,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and after the war, a lot of them stayed in
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the workforce like this. This custom had been broken, and
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: there was a new social acceptance of women working. It
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: was more socially accepted than it was before. And if
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you're working every day, you probably don't want to cook
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: every day. So now not only does your family have
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the money to go eat out, you have a great
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: incentive to go eat out if you're the mom too, like,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: let's go eat out somewhere. But you don't want to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: spend all of your money every time you go out.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So diners kind of moved to the suburbs and said
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: to and open their doors, and those families with the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: little extra money and working moms came to eat there.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: That's right. And I'm gonna go ahead and stop people
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: emailing to say, Josh, you missed a great joke opportunity.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Oh what was it?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Well, when you said hats off, you probably should have said,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: my fez is off to you?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Where feeses increase?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Isn't it Greek?
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: No, that's Northern African, like Morocca, Moroccan or something or Tunisian. Okay,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I think you're thinking of Shriners, and there may be
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: some Greek Shriners. I'm not sure. But in Greece they
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: wear those little kind of sailors caps, almost like a sailor.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: It's a cruss between a newsboy cap and a cap
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: captain's cap. Okay, do you know what I'm talking about?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Look up Greek Greek cap?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Well you know what, I just looked up Fez's Moroccan.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: But it's actually ancient Greek in origin.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: That seems like a pretty wild technicality if you.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Ask me, it is because it is probably not associate
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: with Greece.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: But look right, my Greek cap. You'll know exactly what
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Well, wait, but I bet there's a name for it, right,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the Greek cap. It doesn't have a I don't know,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like a Greek fisherman's cap.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, that's exactly what I mean. That's what you
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: would find somebody wearing it a diner who worked there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a skipper cap or a Breton cap.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there you go. So I tip my Breton cap.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Where were we? Oh, we were talking about women all
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, being like, hey, I don't have to
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: cook all these meals. That's great, right.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And then the diners moved to the suburbs and found
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: like a whole new market. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: And the other thing that they did to help sort of,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: you know, they kind of cleaned up their act a
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: little bit, yeah, and said listen to you guys, maybe
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: don't gamble. Inside the restaurant, they started all of a
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: sudden there were servers, Like they wanted to make it
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: a more you know, full restaurant kind of experience, so
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: you don't even have to get up and go get
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: the plates of food. Now we're going to have people
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: serving them to you, yeah, domesticate them. And and teenagers
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden it was like, hey, we can
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: go hang out of the diner after school, or like
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: these things are open light at night. If we're up
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: to no good, we can go buy the diner and
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: you know and pour a little whiskey into our soda pop.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So Also, and another thing that domesticated the those diners
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: was that those servers were in large part women. The
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: new servers that have been brought on board were women,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and that signaled to families like, hey, this is a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: safe place. Like if I'm safe to work here, you're
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: safe to eat here. Hun right, you know.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were to say, yeah, uh, these were still
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: prefab restaurants for the most part, even post war, but
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: they added more windows, they added like sort of that
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: pastel color theme that you see in diners came along then, yes,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: sometimes mirrored ceilings, yeah, tile for mica counters. That's that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifties kind of look because they had to all
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, you know, cars were resuming by in
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the road and they had to get people's attention to
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: stop and eat. So the diners had to look you know, cooler.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of where that Googi thing come in.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: You might have a cool Googi sign, so a car
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: would go, ah, I got to stop there, right.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So the image that you have of diners, like popular
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: diners that you see in like a movie like Greece
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: or something like that, or Happy Days or whatever that was.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: It solidified to this era, the suburban post World War
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: two diners. The image that we have of diners is
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: like the classic thing.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, still mainly in Northeast affair, but starting around the
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: fifties and into the sixties is when they tried to
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: expect and west and South and it didn't go quite
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: like it did in the Northeast. In the South, I
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: think people associated diners with the Northeast.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And the War of Northern Aggression, I think still too.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Well sure, and just there was you know, in the
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: South at the time, there were just a lot of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: things where it was like, oh, you know, that's how
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the Northerners do it, and we don't do things that way,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: so that we didn't have diners down here like they
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: did up there.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: No, not in classic style, but diners in everything but
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: name were here pretty early on. I think waffle House
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: started in nineteen fifty five, and I'm sure there were
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: diners that, like silver Skillet has to have started before
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the fifties. It is old, the majestic, yes, old. So
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I mean we had things, they just weren't prefab They
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: didn't look like trains necessarily, although some did or had
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: some qualities like that. They just didn't call them diners
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: down here because diners were Yankee.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much exactly right.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Well, we can go ahead and talk about waffle House
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: because they kind of figure in. In the nineteen fifties,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: these new places, these new chains started popping up that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: you know, you may not call it a diner, but
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: something like Denny's opened in California in nineteen fifty three
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: originally Danny's Donuts and morphed into Denny's and Denny's and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Ihop which was in nineteen fifty eight, also in the
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: LA area. They're both essentially diners and even in kind
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: of how they look on the inside and the things
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: they serve and the spirit waffle house is a diner
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: like kind of full stop. They even I don't think
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: they're prefab but like I think opening a waffle house
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: is like this kit in a box built yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but they have like all of the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: classic trappings of a diner. There's the kitchen area that's
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: separated by a counter that people sit at. There's servers
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that come out from behind the counter to help the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: people in the booths booths or booth seating is like
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: actually a diner innovation from way back, and you know,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: there's a door that separates the booths that you come
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: in like this is a diner. It's a diying expensive
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: food exactly, yeah, exactly that can may or may not
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: give you dysentery.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I love waffle house.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: If house the other day and it was not good.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I did too, And that's the first time I've eaten
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: there in years. Where what did you have?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: And where did you go? And why I was on
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: in Smyrna. Okay, I went because I hadn't been in
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a while, and I was craving scattered and covered hash browns, okay,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And it was just gross. I don't know if it
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: was I've changed or this particular waffle house was bad,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was a gross experience for
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: men like gross.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sorry to hear that, because I think one
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: thing waffle house is known for is their remarkable consistency
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: of like the food is kind of exactly the same
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: at all of them.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, I don't I don't mean the food. The
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: food was generally fine. I mean like watching a cook
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: drop something on the floor and just pick it up
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and use it to stuff like that. Really, there was
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a seat that had inexplicably had like a trash bag
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: over it and some tape at the counter, like it
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: was just a gross scene. It had like all waffle
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: houses had that just structural grease that has never been cleaned,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that is holding the place together like glue, And for
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: some reason this one was just grosser than the normal
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: waffle houses grease structure all.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, I had a great experience. Actually went to
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: waffle House with our friend John Hodgman.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, where'd you go?
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Well, somehow, and this might chock some people who know
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: about John, I managed to get him to the camp
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: and he went camping, yeah, before his Atlanta show. And
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: then after the camp, on the way back to Atlanta,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: we stopped at one in you know, North Georgia. So
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: that's like a more real deal experienced waffle house then
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: you could probably imagine.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I think they probably keep theirs cleaner because there are
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: very few places to eat out, so they kind of
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: take pride in what they got.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good. I had an egg sandwich and
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: some hash Browns and John and I splittle country Ham.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, it was good. You were being bad.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: But boy, I used to go there a lot late
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: night in college. That was the thing.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I loved waffle House in high school. I
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: always has a place in my heart. I was just
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: very disappointed that, well that's why you went there. It's
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: entirely possible that I have become more of a germophobe
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: than I was in high school.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I think you and I should hit one up at
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: some point.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: But if I'm just sitting there and like, don't touch anything. Well, no,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: it's me. You can be the gauge of whether it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: me or not.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Just to put a button on this. The very first
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: waffle house you mentioned in nineteen fifty five that upened
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: in Avondale, Estates, which is just a few minutes from
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: where I live, and there is a restored a sort
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: of original waffle house. I guess it was the original
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: waffle house. They have restored as kind of a museum,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: but I don't know if it's ever open. I think
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: you can do events there, but it's it's never opened,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: so I'm not even sure what the deal is.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: That's like strange the world of coke having like the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: coke fountains, but nothing comes out of them. So just
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to button this whole thing up about like Denny's and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I hop in waffle House. Yeah, they were diners, but
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: they were diners that you knew what you were getting
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: no matter where you were in the country because they
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: were chains, and they really gave locally owned diners, like
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the real deal diners a run for their money and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: almost squished them out of existence. So too did fast
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: food chains that were coming up about the same time,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Southern California almost killed the diner. Essentially, is what we're
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: what we're saying by spitting out. I hop Denny's, fast
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: food stuff like McDonald's, and I think Taco Bell. But
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: thanks to that fifties nostalgia of the seventies, Yeah, like
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Greece Happy Days, Shanna. No, yeah, exactly, Shanna. I can't
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: think of any other examples, but it was a big
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: deal back then. They loved the fifties. In the late seventies,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: it managed to like rescue the diner and basically revive
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: it and keep it alive just enough so that you
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: could make a living again as a family, a Greek
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: family apparently owning a diner and just you know, cooking
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: great diner food.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Totally. Should we take a break?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I think we should.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: All right, we'll call this the post waffle House break. Shit,
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: all right.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Now I can think about is setting waffle house right
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: in your mind again?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Well we'll go. It's not like that was its last chance.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I won't be going back to that one again.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: But Okay, it sounded like you were kind of like,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know, why would I even risk it again?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: No, No, I think it could be that location.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, fantastic, that one's dead to you. We should go
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to the one over near me where Kid Rock got
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: in a fistfight man that guy. Uh Oh. The other
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: thing we didn't mention about waffle House, which is they
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: are open twenty four to seven three sixty five and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: FEMA actually uses what's called the waffle House Index, wherein
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: if there's a natural disaster in the area, if the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: waffle house actually is closed, then they will say that
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: they were like even the waffle house is closed, which
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: means we're in real trouble.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like things are really bad there because the waffle
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: does not close.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I had a Thanksgiving there once when I was alone.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: How was it? You know? It was.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Fine and kind of fun and kitchy, but then also
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: a little lonely and sad. Yeah, as you would imagine that.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: But also it's like one of those situations where you
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: connect with the people that you're surrounded by, strangers that
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you meet ay more than under normal circumstances. That can
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: be pretty gratifying in and of itself.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I still keep in touch with with Butch
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: and Trucky and uh, kid Rock, flim Flam and Kid
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Rock and all those people flim flam.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Huh, what's flimflam about?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Flim flam? He's he's a brick layer.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, I know that guy.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: He's a good guy.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Did he go to Georgia stated?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: He lays a heck of.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: A brick too.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I uh so. The the tie between the diner and
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: just sort of pop culture and politics is one that's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: always been around, even back in the very beginning. Lvia
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: found this article from eighteen ninety six from the Boston
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Morning Journal where they talked about it was a place
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: where the fashional gentleman could rub elbows with the homeless itinerant.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: But you know, it was always just sort of like
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: this is authentic America where all kinds of people can
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: get together. And that is why it became a stop
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: for many politicians when they were in town to maybe
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: go to the local diner wherever they were, when they
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: stopped in a town when they were on the campaign trail.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: But certainly some diners have distinguished themselves as you have
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: to come here basically if you're campaigning for office.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: It's interesting there's one in particular called the Red Arrow Diner.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: It's in Manchester in New Hampshire and it was Bill
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Clinton who put it on the map, at least the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: campaign map. He apparently he lost pretty bad in Iowa.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I can't remember Tom Harkin, that's right, was one of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: his who Tom Harkin. He was a senator from Iowa.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So he trounced Clinton and everybody else in Iowa at
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the caucus. But Clinton made a huge comeback by getting
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: really like on the ground and shaking hands and kissing babies.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: And one of the ways that he did that was
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: going to diners. And one of the diners that, for
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: some reason or another stuck was the Red Arrow Diner.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And it became tradition. Like when you go through New Hampshire,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: if you're running for president in the United States, you
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: go to the Red Arrow Diner. You have a pressop there,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: you go, meet a few people, you eat some pancakes
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: or something, and you leave. But you have to do it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: You can't not do it, which is pretty cool. But
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the thing that surprised me is this actually goes a
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: little further back than nineteen ninety two is Jimmy Carter,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: who first was like, man, I want to portray that
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to the people. Where are the people, and
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: then he thought the diner, specifically the Chat and chew,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: which is the worst name for any restaurant ever in
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the history of civilization. I don't know if that's going
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to track in Tunnel one to New York.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: It should be the chat then chew, right, or the
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: chew then chat. Don't do both of the same.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Thing, right, or maybe the chew quietly swallow And then
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: when you think of something interesting to say, chat.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I like that, knew better. Yeah that's good. Yeah, Jimmy Carter.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: It's been a thing ever since then. Diners have always
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: popped up in pop culture. There's a few notable instances.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: One of course, is the Edward Hopper painting from nineteen
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: forty two Nighthawks, which is that classic painting of the
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: diner on the corner. And you know, all kinds of
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: people have been painted into that painting since then.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I had that poster the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Yep, and Bogie and Elvis is behind the counter working
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: for some reason. Now, okay, I don't know why Bogeye
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: would be included in that. He was fine, He had
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: a gratefulfilling, nice life, no broken dreams, not one. From
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: what I understand.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: There was the movie Diner, of course, Barry Levinson's movie
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty two. Great movie set around these dudes
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine Baltimore and sort of that diner
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: culture of hanging out and you know, up to no goodness.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Apparently that that movie in particular, But I think Barry
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Levinson's work in general inspired Quentin Tarantino. His whole banter
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: thing that he's so well known for. Apparently it comes
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: from Barry Levinson had no idea.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Old Tarantino has a lot of
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: diner stuff. The reservoir Dogs opening scene, yep, I don't
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: tip that whole classic scene.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: A lot of barely scripted banter in all of his.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Movies, yeah, which is heavily scripted.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: So god, that'd be so hard to do well. I mean, yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Breton cap off to the actors in Tarantino movies who
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: can memorize that stuff and regurgitate it without making it
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: seem like it's win totally, you know.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The great diner in pulp fiction, of course, is
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the Hawthorne Grill in La which is now an AutoZone.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: That's sad. But what about the Marte Cafe in North Bend, Washington,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: which stood in as the Double R Diner.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: In Twin Peaks Classic.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: It is a classic diner so much so that you're like,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that's kind of a creddy diner. Like that's how well
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: they nailed it.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, big time. I think they shot the pilot in
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the actual North Bend's location and then they moved to
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: a sound stage for a lot of the actual show
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: and rebuilt that diner, but then went back to the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: real diner for the movie Firewalk with Me, and I
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: believe it was partially burned down in two thousand and rebuilt,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: but it didn't look the same. So in twenty seventeen,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: when David Lynch came out with the new Twin Peaks,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: they actually paid to restore that diner to its original
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: appearance so they could film there, which is awesome.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just goes to show you production companies get stuff done.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like when they rebuilt Avondale Mall near me because
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Chuck Norris drove a pickup through it in Invasion USA.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, there's one called Tom's, Well, Tom's Restaurant
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's just called Tom's. It's in Manhattan on Broadway,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and if you've ever watched Seinfeld, that's what they uses
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the establishing shot for their Monks Coffee Shop, I think right. Yeah,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and the Suzanne Vegas song Tom's Diner is about Tom's
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: as well. Oh, Susan Mega, Yeah you remember that song?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell us a near worm.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Well I will, I will batty you. At the same time,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: we can drive people crazy by me singing my name
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: is Luca. On top of no, you can't do it,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I will if you want. Okay, you ready, my name
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: is Luca. I live on the second floor. It definitely
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: makes Luca more upbeat.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: W Yeah, for sure, it's a it's not supposed to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: be upbeat.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: For sure. We can mention cases because you are correct.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: That is in uh Natic or I'm in Massachusetts. How
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: you pronounced Natick? Yeah, totally okay, And that's supposedly the
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: oldest diner in the United States. That's still a thing.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It started out as like a lunch wagon, like
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: with a horse attached to it from eighteen ninety and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: then it became one of those Worcester Lunch Car Company
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: models from nineteen twenty two, and I guess they bought
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: that and replaced the lunch Wagon with it in nineteen
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: twenty seven. It's been running ever since then. That's just amazing.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And we got to shout out New Jersey
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: because Jersey and when I lived there, there was a
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: kid from the South who who only knew waffle house.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Basically all I heard was diner this, and diner that.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: You know, whenever people out, well, let's go to the diner.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Let's meet at the diner. I was like, what is
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: it with you people in diners? Because I didn't know
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: about this culture in the Northeast. And New Jersey is
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I believe, still the leading state for the number of
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: diners today.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If you've ever watched Sopranos, let's set in New
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Jersey and they're in diners like all the time.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, six hundred of the roughly two thousand diners still around,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: as according to Smithsonian Magazine, are in New Jersey. And
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: maybe the Jerio Mahoney company being based there had something
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: to do with that, but they love their diners in Jersey.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Well, there you go, Jersey. This episode was for you.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Can you get anything else? Nah, I don't either. Since
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Chuck said Nan, I said, I don't either. That unlocked
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: listener mail.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna call this buttons buttons buttons. We heard
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: from a lot of people about why buttons are for
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: traditionally for a man's garment and a woman's garment on
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: different sides. I had heard this, but I forgot Okay,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: so thanks to everyone who emailed in. But we're going
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: with Sheila from Decatur, Georgia, because Sheila's right down the
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: street to as a long time Atlanta and uga Alum.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I love your show, guys, especially when you reference Atlanta
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: and Athens go Dogs. Regarding your mention of buttons on
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: the opposite side, women's clothes have traditionally been made with
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: enclosures on the opposite of men's because of upper class
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: royal women having assistants when getting dressed. Therefore, and people
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: being traditionally or not traditionally but predominantly right handed. Therefore,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: the buttons would be fastened by someone on the other
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: side of the person wearing the clothes. I guess with
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: the assumption that actually working the button with your right
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: hand is more intuitive and easier than your left hand,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: your non dominant hand, so more right handed people. Means
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: men were dressing themselves with a button the right and
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: women were dressed by other women with their buttons on
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the left.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Who is that? Who wrote that? Suzanne Vega?
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: That was Susanna, That was Shila, Chila Vegas, Susanne's sister.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Sheila. We appreciate that from you, and
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of people wrote in, So yeah, thank you
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to everybody like you said. And if you want to
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: be like Shila and the whole gang and write to
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: us and tell us something interesting that we didn't know,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: you can do it via email, send it off to
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.