Bob’s in Bainbridge, NY was a homebuilt dating to 1935, following the design and proportions of factory build models but wider. It’s been remodeled several times and the original barrel roof shape is no longer recognizable.
Randall Diner – 1201 Randall Ave. Bronx. Now Allen’s Restaurant. This one is in the Diners of NY book, but as a ’70s diner. Looks like it may be a remodel of the much older diner.
154 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn NYC. Now El Cibao Dinner (yes- Dinner not Diner). These diner/ gas station combinations were popular in the early days. A lot of the gas stations survived in one way or another. A lot of the diners did not.
2020-2024 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NYC
Ed Engel found a photo of this old barrel roof diner while searching through the 1980s NYC DOF tax photos online. Full record here. It’s still there, though as seems to be the case with these 80+ year old diners, it looks to be hacked to bits and barely recognizable.
1102 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NYC
Some photos from when I first visited the Amherst Diner, six years ago. Purely by chance, my father and I hit it on the day of their grand re-opening. I was interviewed for the Winchester Star. An excerpt from the story appears below.
A Maryland teen with the day off from school dug into some sausage gravy on Wednesday during his first visit to the Amherst.
Spencer Stewart, 15, of Olney, didn’t know he had appeared on the first day of Ashby’s tenure.
His father Michael, an architectural photographer, took photos and served as the driver for their Winchester excursion, which was slated to include the Piccadilly Grill, Snow White Grill, and perhaps the Triangle Diner.
He likes the food, and said he is interested in them because they’re disappearing.
He and his father often take day trips to eateries within two or three hours of their home, and they’ve also taken longer excursions along the East Coast.
Spencer is now filling his third journal’s worth of notes on diners.
And while Spencer may revisit the Amherst in the future, patrons such as Swartz and Heishman plan on appearing at the counter every morning.
“As long as they stay open, we’ll be here,” Heishman said.
The Amherst diner is an old on-site family restaurant. I wouldn’t count it as a on-site built diner, because it does not conform to the aesthetic of factory built diners.
Here’s another matchbook cover I just got.
The Pulaski Highway Double T Diner, before it was unfortunately remodeled into the current Happy Day Diner.
Before and after photos here.
The Spot Diner was located at 220 N. Franklintown Road, Baltimore, MD, an industrial neighborhood just off Rt. 40.
While the matchbook graphic obviously exaggerates the diner’s size, it does appear to be a representation of the diner itself, and not just a stock image. It looks like the diner was sold in 1954 and changed its name to the Franklintown Diner. It was sold again in 1962.
The site is now home to Calmi Electric. The windows and proportions are right for a covered diner, as is the foundation and window/door deletes on the other side of the building. But the setup and size don’t look consistent with what’s on the match cover, even taking into account the exaggeration. So at the moment- it’s a big who knows. Further investigation is necessary.
Matchbook from the collection of Spencer Stewart
I went and hunted down the site of Washington No. 7 today, which opened on December 23, 1931. From the size of the tree growing up through the vacant lot, I would say its been gone for a while at this point. The building itself is gone, but the outline of the signature Little Tavern roof is still visible on the wall of the building next door. The brick basement is all still there, covered by a steel framework which I would assume was the floor of the LT. And what’s this I see? Green enameled steel roof tiles? Too bad they’re a story beneath street level and behind a plywood construction fence.
This entire section of G street looks like its waiting to be torn down or otherwise redeveloped. The buildings to the left are all vacant. The Hahn / Florsheim shoe store in the old bank building is also gone, though it seems the National Bank of Washington still occupies it and the buildings seem to have fallen on hard times. For those who don’t know the area, it’s all high priced offices and condos around this cluster.
The vacant lot
Next door to the National Bank of Washington
ghost of an LT
Sorry for the crappy pic- I may be tall, but the eight foot plywood fence is taller, and getting pictures through the 1/2″ gap between two of the panels just wasn’t happening. This is the steel framing over a brick foundation and basement. Lots of tree going on.
Rusty green tiles from the Little Tavern green roof.
Washington no. 7 was (is?) located at
1344 G street northwest Washington DC
The first Washington DC Little Tavern, located at 814 E Street, NW, opened its doors in 1928. It appears the site is now the home of a twelve story apartment building and a Bank of Georgetown.
Early Little Taverns seem to have had a design similar to that of 1920s White Castles and White Towers.
By 1931, the Tudor Cottage Design had been adopted
In 1937, it was updated with a bit more of a moderne syle
Typical Plans and detail
A design from 1949
And a later, simplified design. What I’ve found on this one points to a date of construction in 1974
This one was found in Silver Spring, Maryland until relatively recently. When it was torn down, it had been painted yellow and was operating as a Chinese restaurant.
The West Shore Diner was built in the 1930s by the Patterson Vehicle Company of Patterson, New Jersey. It may be the only surviving Silk City diner with this narrow floor plan. It appears it may have originally been all stools, but that at some point, the back wall was bumped out. This moved the backbar out the back a bit, allowing the counter to be moved further back, freeing up space for some deuce booths on the outside wall. The ceiling is similar to other silk city diners, but as it is so much narrower, it is steeper on the sides, and does not have the elegant curve of later models. Dark woodwork, tile and formica make up most of the interior, while the exterior has been repainted time and time again. The West Shore shows its 70+ years of age, but is a unique example of early New Jersey diner manufacture. his is my go-to diner in the Harrisburg area, and one of the best I’ve been to. It is one of the friendliest around. The food is excellent, and comes in enormous portions at bargain prices. They have great t-shirts, too, which is always a plus. You can’t go wrong with a stop at the West Shore.
A more recent, more drab paint scheme.
The main diner is an old one, a mid ’20s model, very small, more a stationary lunch wagon than anything else. Inside, the wheelwells are still visible. It’s all stools inside the diner, but seating has been supplemented with an addition, at an angle to the diner, off to the right. There’s a great neon sign out front.
This 1926 Ward and Dickinson located at 40 E. Main St.
And then there’s this building, also in Westfield, NY. It’s very reminiscent of a small lunch wagon, both in size, and in the barrel roof. Closson was based out of Westfield from 1912-1917, but it doesn’t have the monitor roof that they did. Whatever it is, it’s an interesting building.
Diner Hunter 
