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The Classic American Diner

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Re: The Classic American Diner

#81

Post by uxp100 »

solomonb wrote: post #23

I love diners but they aren't affordable anymore! I want a cheap simple meal and bad coffee. The diners that seem to survive in this market end up up-scaling their menus. : (

I’ve got a place by me that does 2 eggs, 2 pancakes (or French toast), 2 sausages and toast for $4 before 8 AM.

And I don’t go there. The spots that get twice (or more) as much for that meal really are quite a bit better. And their coffee is truly foul. Classic diner coffee is fine, but if I’ve had better coffee on an airplane I’m not prone to going back.

Re: The Classic American Diner

#82

Post by [deleted] »

gyomu wrote: post #52
dylan604 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These prices adjusted for today's value seem off though. I'm guessing you'd be hard pressed to find a diner burger for $5.14 anywhere. No, fast food joints are not the same here and not part of this discussion. Where is the discrepancy? I've never really trusted these "adjusted for inflation" type numbers. I'm not an economist so I have no idea how they are calculated, but they've always just felt off to me. Usually,…

Things just don’t really convert neatly because the shape of what people spend money on in life hasn’t evolved uniformly. Food appears somewhat cheaper, housing much cheaper; but clothing and tools/appliances were much more expensive. Things like student debt and healthcare costs are also interesting to compare and wildly differ over time & place. Also common for the average middle class person to spend a sizable per…

[deleted]

Re: The Classic American Diner

#83

Post by watersb »

hackingonempty wrote: post #22

One of my hobbies is looking up old prices in the BLS CPI calculator to see what they would cost today (March 2026 is the latest data.) The June 1940 photograph along Hwy 1 in Maryland had $0.05 hotdogs ($1.17) and $0.10 burgers ($2.34). The Feb 1959 photograph from the NYC diner advertises a $0.45 burger ($5.14) and probably a $0.75 steak sandwich ($8.57)

I wonder if portion size is comparable.

We may have inflation in more than one sense: prices have gone up, and perhaps the size of burgers and hot dogs have also increased.

No doubt I can find portion size clues if I look around. Haven't done so yet.

Re: The Classic American Diner

#84

Post by [deleted] »

watersb wrote: post #83
hackingonempty wrote: post #22

One of my hobbies is looking up old prices in the BLS CPI calculator to see what they would cost today (March 2026 is the latest data.) The June 1940 photograph along Hwy 1 in Maryland had $0.05 hotdogs ($1.17) and $0.10 burgers ($2.34). The Feb 1959 photograph from the NYC diner advertises a $0.45 burger ($5.14) and probably a $0.75 steak sandwich ($8.57)

I wonder if portion size is comparable. We may have inflation in more than one sense: prices have gone up, and perhaps the size of burgers and hot dogs have also increased. No doubt I can find portion size clues if I look around. Haven't done so yet.

[deleted]

Re: The Classic American Diner

#85

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #64
solomonb wrote: post #23

I love diners but they aren't affordable anymore! I want a cheap simple meal and bad coffee. The diners that seem to survive in this market end up up-scaling their menus. : (

I desperately miss the 90's and the middle class we used to have. I also miss basic cheap eats. If someone tried to make an authentic type of diner today, it would immediately become swamped with influencers. How can I get away from all this? Is there a town somewhere where everyone is over 45 and there is no cell service and a full meal is $5? Heck I would settle for a small NorCal town that doesn't have gangs or me…

> Is there a town somewhere where everyone is over 45 and there is no cell service and a full meal is $5?

Yes, but they're suspicious of outsiders and newcomers. They're afraid the newbies will vote away everything that makes that town feel like home.

Re: The Classic American Diner

#86

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #40
solomonb wrote: post #23

I love diners but they aren't affordable anymore! I want a cheap simple meal and bad coffee. The diners that seem to survive in this market end up up-scaling their menus. : (

Waffle House is your jam. Only in the southern US unfortunately

Bonus, there's a solid chance of being ringside to an epic local MMA fight.

Re: The Classic American Diner

#87

Post by yumraj »

kshacker wrote: post #19
yumraj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which one(s) in South Bay? any recommendations?

My favorite is Holders Country Inn. I used to go to the one in Cupertino before it burnt down. They moved, this was on Deanza long time back, and the one on Wolfe does not have the same old diner feeling, it is for the next gen :) Now I go to the one on Saratoga. And while I do not go as often to other places, I have been to and liked Hobees, then there is one Joe's near Half Moon Bay. We go there as a family when we…

Thanks, haven’t been to a diner in ages but have been meaning to go try out for old time time’s sake.

Used to go to Peppermill in Santa Clara, and Dennys many years ago.

Thanks for suggesting El Caminito, looks good. Our usual Mexican for many years has been La Milpa in Milpitas, haven’t found a good equivalent yet.

Re: The Classic American Diner

#89

Post by prawn »

solomonb wrote: post #23

I love diners but they aren't affordable anymore! I want a cheap simple meal and bad coffee. The diners that seem to survive in this market end up up-scaling their menus. : (

I suspect that people want a theoretical cheap, simple meal, but what makes things cheap now is less the simplicity of ingredients, but really lowering the labour effort. So, something like the free breakfast at a cheap motel: bulk egg mixture, sausages that might as well be 50% cardboard pulp, big tubs of factory waffle batter, churned out onto disposable plates. Unless that's exactly what you have in mind, of course!

Re: The Classic American Diner

#90

Post by JumpCrisscross »

db48x wrote: post #78
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying the prices listed were just for the ingredients and not the actual cost to the person ordering? Sorry, no. I'm saying labour is probably a larger fraction of the burger's costs today than it was in the 1950s. (I'd naively guess profits are, too.)

That may be true, but I suspect that it’s also hard to compare apples to apples. A burger in 1959 is hard to compare to a burger today. Today’s burger almost certainly has twice as much meat. The invention of (and ubiquitous advertising of) the quarter–pounder means that everyone had to make their burgers larger to match. Sides are larger, drinks are larger, etc, etc. But labor costs certainly have gone up too.

This would be a genuinly-interesting bit of analysis for someone to do. (Also do the patty melt!)
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