According to this article (Another Lehigh Valley diner returning to 24/7 service | Eat, Sip, Shop | wfmz.com) another diner, (a PA one) is returning to being open all the time. And as much as I have eaten in this diner in Nazareth (sorry, I do sometimes ‘cheat’ on our plethora of NJ diners) and can attest to its high quality, I also am quite heartened by the tickle/hint/whisper of a possible portent here…are our beloved diners finally coming back to their 24/7-hour status?
(The above article mentions even more diners coming back to late night life).
Being a born/bred-and-will-die-in-New Jersian I have a great love for, and a long history with our state’s diners. Yes, I have written about this here before, but it bears repeating I feel, especially in light of what I hope is happening in battling (although to be completely forthcoming, a beloved diner in West Orange actually closed last week) the rollback on late-night eating we got from COVID (and don’t get me started on all the ways that epidemic destroyed our cultural).
For me, 24/7 diner eating is one of the things that made life especially fantastic in our Garden State.
Late night diner service was there for my band and I after a gig…as we saw other bands coming in from the gigs they had, or to welcome us for a late-night omelet post a Saturday night club crawl. It answered your hungries on a Sunday night where you’d impress that friend who came in from out of state that yes, there was a place open at that late hour. Or provided the comforting knowledge that no matter whenever you traveled in NJ there would at least be a diner you could stop into for tummy fuel. Or made you secure knowing that there was a place to hang with friends in the wee hours when one of them got off from a midnight shift.
Not to mention, if you had a craving for any combination of food at four in the morning, you could come grab a buddy and sail off to the local diner to get your fix!
As you have also read here aplenty I rail against the ‘new normal.’ I think COVID brought nothing bur heartache, ill health, and how it so divided this nation across already derisive political lines. I hated it. I hate it now. I hate it on a train in the rain…But if we could get more diners back to 24/7 status, not only will I have a place to get scrambled eggs and a slice of cheesecake at four in the morning, but I feel we might take a step back to a normal that was indeed normal.
When diners were open 24/7.
