Dine Like It's 1950 in Warrenton, Virginia
Until the end of the day, upgrade to a yearly paid subscription for 20 percent off! 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:
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.
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:
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 Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive: over 700 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! Or subscribe/upgrade to paid for a discount! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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