This was my first real diner trip in a while. I met up today with Mike Engle, author of Diners of New York; the man behind NYdiners.com, and roadside buff and frequent Zippy the Pinhead contributor Ed Engel at the American City Diner, and headed out from there.

The first stop of the day was the American City Diner of 5532 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC. It’s a late ’80s Kullman, one of the early retro-styled diners, and one of the ones that did it right. For some photos as it appeared when new, click here. Since then, it’s been added on to, with a large side addition, and a front porch which obscures everything to the left of the vestibule.

The Left side of the diner- 2009

The left side of the diner – 1989

The former Howard Theater. Great rusty marquis on this one.

The now abandoned Wonderbread / Hostess Factory

Ran into a little excitement along the way between these two stops, but all’s well that ends well.

Northeast Academy of Dance Neon sign. Look at the detail at the left hand corner of the sign.

We hit up the Capital City Diner, which was moved here on the 20th. Watch the video of it being moved. This Silk City, formerly of Avoca New York, has made its way to the Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast DC.
Photos at its original location and some backstory can be found at :A Real Historic Diner Coming to DC!

This next leg of the trip had some neat neon and signage

A&R Auto Parts

Syd’s Drive In / Liquor

Cross Roads

Tesst theater

Hyattsville Hardware / Franklin’s

Calvert House

Silver Spring’s old Canada Dry bottling plant

A quick stop at the Silver Spring Tastee was made.

Now

Then

More old photos can be found here.

Then a side trip to Forest Glen, parts of which have deteriorated greatly since my last visit.

Dinner at the Tastee Diner in Bethesda

Then

And the trip’s final stop at Bethesda’s former Little Tavern. A 1990 photo of it, when it was still a Little Tavern, can be found on the Diner Hotline.