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This is a diner in Warrenton, Virginia, on U.S. 29:

Now usually I show you buildings that have changed over the years. But this time, not so much. Here’s a postcard of the diner in the 1950s!

It basically looks exactly the same! Even the cinderblock back half looks almost the same—it’s been painted and perhaps expanded back a bit. Otherwise, this building has been sitting here on this stretch of U.S. 29 since 1954 when it was brought to the site and 1955 when it first opened.

On Facebook, some of the comments were very interesting and show how long back this goes:

An ole stomping hang out after all the dances in Warrenton.

Who were the people that owned it in early 70s?

The Barnhearts.

They lived right behind the Ford dealer?

I remember when Frost’s diner was across the road in a small wooden building by a service station.

They removed the jukeboxes at the table. Most of the maintenance has degraded the history. What happened to that epic sign? So many of the these old diners end up owned by people that don’t recognize how historically important they are. The food quality goes downhill and the upkeep does the same. This place has so much potential.

Back when it was on the bypass. Now there’s a bypass for the bypass.

Wish it was 24 hours again

Used to eat breakfast there on Wednesday’s each week when I went up in there valley selling seafood, it was one of our best stops we would just sit outside and sell to people.

We would go there for dinner after laying out our high school newspaper - The Jackson Journal at the Fauquier Democrat. Mrs. Gartlan was working there as a hostess and she would join us for dinner.

A previous world starts to come into focus.

Here’s a 1986 Washington Post article, on what must have then seemed like the diner’s improbable survival through a period of obsolescence that preceded today’s nostalgia.

On this particular day, the specials were chicken vegetable soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, Jell-O and coffee or tea for $2.50; a cold plate of chicken salad, coleslaw and potato salad for $2.95; or creamed country ham over biscuits with two vegetables for $2.95. “Vegetables” include anything from lima beans to green salad to cottage cheese to Jell-O.

Sunday’s special is Payne’s favorite: “That roast beef can’t be beat — you can cut it with a fork.”

Aside from the specials, there’s a menu with just about everything else you’d expect in the way of diner cuisine. On the front is a picture of a sign — with a jaunty chef peering over the top — that stood in front of the diner until a truck knocked it down. “It was upsetting, really,” said Bob Ward, his constant smile leaving his face for a minute. On the back of the menu are premeal prayers for Catholics, Jews and Protestants.

So that’s what happened to the grand old neon sign—the blurry bit above the text in the postcard scan is the chef peering over the top!

Also this, which gives you a sense of just how dramatically labor costs have eaten into customer service:

There are 10 waitresses at the diner who keep things humming all week long. Waitress Mickey Ellis, 53, who worked at the diner 20 years ago, returned late last year. “The same customers come in now that came in 20 years ago,” she said. “A lot of them recognize me before I recognize them.”

And, of course, the diner was built in New Jersey!

I also want to show you this old diner, since demolished, that used to stand on U.S. 22 in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, not far from my hometown. It was abandoned for as long as I was alive—I guess it didn’t survive that period of obsolescence and neglect that hit the midcentury American roadside a few decades later.

It has almost the same sign on top, and it’s almost the same model. Somebody recalls eating there in the 1970s, when it had a jukebox by each table.

The same mass-produced thing, but so many individual, distinct memories.

Check out the related reading links—they’re all diners!

Related Reading:

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #2

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #8

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #12

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