In Japan fast food restaurants are quite easy to find. Over the years the Japanese have become well-addicted to Western-styled foods. However, there is one form of American restaurant which has not yet been duplicated in Japan. It is the 24 hour diner which has become so much a part of the American dining scene. A trip to one is really essential to savor American food and experience local dining habits.
The coffee shops and diners in particular have long been monopolized by Greek-Americans. The former are an obvious outgrowth of the Greek's cherished love for coffee. The later perhaps are associated with the fact that so many Greeks worked the American railroads that inspired the first diners. The Greek diner was immortalized in the late 1970s when it was lampooned in a featured segment of comedy television.
Early diners were sometimes housed in renovated railroad cars or trolleys which were no longer in use. They served the function of bringing quick, tasty yet eco- nomical meals to the poor, blue-collared workers. These hardy diners at first were not very comfortable or clean and catered only to men. Later when they were equipped with ventilation and toilet facilities, they became fit for women to dine it.
In the 1940s diners came to represent a lost era of glamour and more than 6700
diners fed one million people each day in America. Diners went into a period of decline when fast-food restaurants proliferated in the 1960s and 70s but have since enjoyed a renaissance.
Most diners in America, or at least those in New York, are owned by Greeks and they offer an international menu. The names of such restaurants may vary in accordance with the neighborhood where they may be located. Thus a diner in an Italian neighborhood may be called The Venetian Gondola, but in a Jewish neighborhood it may go b the name The Ram's Horn. The waiters themselves may not necessarily be Greeks since many college students of various backgrounds work in these places for their part time jobs.
The interiors of these diners are purely functional and among the decor you will find potted plants and glass chandeliers, and an atmosphere of pretentious ethnicity congruous to the neighborhood in which they are located. Recently, however, there has been a nostalgic renaissance of diners in big cities and they have been enlarged and modernized with lavish interiors. Service is usually prompt, perky and efficient. Judging from the often familiar exchanges between waiters and customers it could be well assumed that most of the patrons are frequent visitors.
The salient feature of these diners is that they never close. They are opened 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Where else, for example, can one get up at three o'clock in the morning and go to a local diner for a prime ribs of beef dinner? Not only will the dinner be served piping hot, but no one will consider it odd that one has requested such a meal at such an early hour.
The menu itself may consist of several pages and contain foods from every corner of the world. Italian pastas, Greek moussakas, Russian blini, Hungarian goulash and French crepes are all included. To make a choice is no simple matter, but rarely are they out of anything. What makes these diners so appealing is that they have the resources to cater to almost any taste.