[Opinionated Blowhard]

It isn’t just New York and other urban / hipster areas. Even in areas outside of the cities with substantial older populations, the diners are disappearing. And the ones that are left are DINO — diners in name only. Pre-processed food at high prices. Simply cashing in on the nostalgia. My grandmother and grandfather used to go to the Limerick Diner in Limerick PA several times a week for years in the late 70s and 80s. I used to go a fair amount too. Then new ownership increased prices substantially and downgraded the quality of the food. Another diner that several generations of my family went to in Phoenixville, PA — the Vale Rio Diner — finally went belly up too. Its a shame.

[Wallace T.]

Tastes change over time, and it is not necessarily an example of societal decay. In the South and Southwest, cafeterias hold the same nostalgia element that diners do in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions. Cafeterias are a dying breed, with most of the chains having disappeared or much smaller in size. Ditto for discount steak restaurants like Bonanza, so popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The few that survive, like Golden Corral, offer a wide variety of food, with steaks or roast beef relegated to a minor role.

There is a magazine called Good Old Days, filled with stories of life in the mid-20th Century. This magazine has been around for 60 years. When it was first published, the stories were based on life in the 1890-1914 period. Fifty years from now, it, or an electronic version thereof, will be filled with stories about the early 21st Century.