A quick note before we dive in: you probably noticed a hiatus over the last couple of weeks while I tended to some family + medical things. Thanks for sticking with me.
In the middle of nowhere in the North Carolina Piedmont sits the Old Richmond Grill. For as long as I can remember, my dad and I have called it Eddie’s. Eddie doesn’t own the joint but he’s managed it for 40 years.
It’s a low brick rectangle of a building, with a simple sign out front and some humble flower boxes. When you walk in, the first thing you notice is the row of worn vinyl seats: old-school rounds evenly spread out before the Formica bar and permanently mounted to the floor like soda shops of days past. Enough for eight people. Here you can sit and talk to Eddie or Chris or the line cook on the grill and watch them prep everyone’s order. Or you can grab one of the four or five booths along the window. I’ve never counted but it’s no more than a handful. Somehow, some way, we always get the booth at the end. Next to the wash-up sink.
Yes, the wash-up sink. A little white porcelain bathroom sink installed at this opposite end from the door, in clear view of everyone. It’s expected that you enter the diner and wash your hands before or just after settling into your spot, but most definitely before you order. There’s a cross over the sink and some Bible quote. There are a couple of these crosses and Bible quotes scattered around the diner’s interior, in small spots or more noticeable-sized spots but if you look hard enough, you can count them all before you leave. There’s some Nascar memorabilia and some flyers for a local truck show, a school fundraiser. Bits and bobs collected from customers over the years. The menus, laminated and cream with age, are dropped off with the usual round of “hello’s” and asking after each other’s families, but you should also crane your neck around to glance at the specials on the board above the sink. I do. I never order them. My dad orders the fried fish sandwich special. I order the cheeseburger: smashed, LTO, ketchup and mustard. Fries and pickle on the side.
While we wait, Eddie comes around the bar to say hello. He always wears a white hat, the kind that reminds me of waxed paper sailboats and bored days around the house. His shirts are limp, a little greasy and stained under the arms. He is tall and lanky and stoops over from the years, with a grin you can imagine on a Bassett hound. At the diner, my dad is known as “Doc” or “Dr. Campbell” even though he hasn’t practiced medicine in a while. He’s a regular here. I’m not, but they treat me like one because I’m with him. I think he might be one of the only non-Republicans in the place at any given time, but they don’t seem to hold that against him.
During lunch, I watch one man slowly sift through the Winston-Salem Journal. Another pair of men converse about life the universe and everything, their troubles and wins wafting in my direction where I can only hear something about a car and then a wife. A father and his daughter (a daughter younger than me) pop in and announce to the room they’ve got blueberries and tomatoes for sale if we want some. I do want some and buy a flat of berries. A woman with yellow hair spun up like cotton candy comes in and grabs a large grease-stained bag of carryout sandwiches. I don’t remember any of these people’s names but if I visited more often, I would. I would know all of them.
After lunch we’ll order milkshakes to go, and take turns sipping the other’s to “try it out” even though we know nothing has changed. It’s a decade-old familiar taste. Dad drives us home. In my lap: a cardboard box filled to the brim with berries.
The Old Richmond Grill used to run 6am to 8pm, but nowadays it closes at 3pm after lunch, which I guess is a good call, but also a sign of the times. Today, Chris manages the place. He’s always friendly, always in a good mood. Eddie consults. They accept credit cards, when for the first 52 years, it was cash-only. The bathroom is out back, by the way.
I love this place with my whole heart.
It’s become my replacement diner after Five Points, my old spot in Asheville. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll go to Five Points, just not nearly as often. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten older. I used to go there fifteen, twenty years ago, and now on any given day it’s more crowded with more young millennials - high waisted in black denim and hungover from last night’s Sharon van Etten show, vaping just outside the door - than old timers. What?! Young people, like the kind of young person I used to be?! Inconceivable. Unacceptable. On other days, there’s a lot of construction guys and I can’t get a seat anywhere. I think I simply want to be around more old people. Maybe I should just open a diner next to a retirement home. Everybody wins.
First aside: if you’re ever in Asheville, stop in Five Points and see it for yourself. Third-generation owned. Breakfast is solid. See also: The Med and Sawhorse.
As a kid, I didn’t “get” the diner. On a road trip with my dad, he made it his purpose to find the one diner in a forty-mile radius. While my eyes widened as we neared those golden yellow arches and I caught the mouthwatering scent of crispy, salted French fries, dreaming of Happy Meals holding the latest toys within their origami folds, my dad was not into that. Nope. Fast food cheapened the experience of living. We would coast off the exit, past the McDonald’s and Arby’s and Taco Bell, me crestfallen and knowing what would come next. One turn after another after another. I lost track of how far we veered off course—I-81 long behind us—until we found “the place.” Rectangular. Screen door. Inside, a tinny radio and a clear display of all of that day’s sides in their silver warmers. Green beans. Green other things. Crust-topped Mac and cheese. Pintos. I hated there weren’t many children around and absolutely no coloring paper like they gave me at TGIFriday’s or Applebee’s. No toys in meals. I hated the dark wood siding and randomly placed doilies and the fact I couldn’t hear the radio even though it was clearly, inexplicably on. None of the pictures matched. The only thing that ever redeemed the experience was the moment when my dad let me order dessert, and I chose banana pudding. If you’ve ever had rural diner banana pudding, you know what I’m talking about. It’s something special in the disguise of the least special thing on the menu. Creamy, rich, crunchy wafers, chunky sliced banana, whip topping, glopped into a bowl in the biggest portion you’ve ever seen.
I got through many snooze fest diner stops thanks to that banana pudding.
Second aside: Unfortunately, I don’t have time here to go into the many complicated layers of what constitutes fast food versus cheap food versus “good” versus “bad,” nutrition in food deserts, and the intertwining issues of classism, racism and food accessibility. But things to keep in mind every time you sit at someone else’s table.
In my early twenties, I finally realized there are many things to love about a diner. Non-chain. Mom and pop with a personality and yet somehow universal at the same time. Often cash only. No Wifi for customers. The term “plating” is not a culinary art form but a raw, perfunctory verb. Very Greek. Very midwest. Very southern. Very Canadian border. Very breakfast and lunch, dinner is gonna be dicey. Very cozy. You literally can’t get lost in a diner. You can’t hide either, and if you’re telling me right now the booth in the far end is enough to keep your business to yourself, I’m here to tell you everyone in that place knows your business.
Most of the experience I have is with rural and highway diners, though. It could be different in metros, but I get the feeling they’re similar. At least for the handful of freestanding diners I understand that are left around Manhattan. And the one string that ties them together, the ones I love, the one thing I get from all of them is that they’re ugly. They’re ugly in such a way that even Gen Z’ers don’t want to post about them. Because they capture the truest slice of living no one finds “interesting” in our Era of Consumable Content.
When I think of picturesque diners, I immediately think of places like Pop’s in Riverdale, or Bo’s Diner from Baby Driver. Shadows of Hopper and Lynch. Classic elongated layouts that could fit a train car, the glowing neon warmth from the jukebox, shiny vinyl seats, black and white checkered floors, a place where the whip cream never melts and the cherries are perfectly plump and there’s always one last slice of cake under the glass dome. It’s a beautiful sight. These chrome bullets still exist all over America, enticing you to stop in and step back in time. The retro aesthetic diner, perfectly preserved. There are poly-cotton blend outfits with little name tags. The floors are never sticky. The windows are squeegeed for a glance at the clear blue sky and the promise of youth and good times after your meal. Black and white photos of Hollywood stars on the walls.
At one point in my life, I longed for this aesthetic. I craved it. I tried to embody it, black and white polka dot swing dress tied around my neck, heels shined, with quarters in my coat pocket. Because I wanted to pretend I was from a different time. I was in drag of sorts, and I looked for places that were in drag, too. It took me a lot of trial and error and exploration to find out what I really liked and furthermore, to be okay with that.
Today I no longer desire to visit or eat in the shiny retro diner. I won’t. Because today, the shiny retro diners are filled with insufferable people taking selfies, marveling at the novelty of it all. They seek out the pretty diners. They spend the whole time documenting a place that’s catering to a Golden Age fantasy while their food grows cold. It’s not even nostalgia because they weren’t alive at the time. But it’s what they want to believe happened, how things were. They also like to act out that one Tarantino scene on Halloween. They go home and tell their friends about this “cute little restaurant” and they never go back. I used to be that person, and I don’t want to be around those people anymore.
Even Waffle House has become on-brand. There’s a book and a song dedicated to it and right before the pandemic during a food festival, I watched a bunch of chic NYC editors Uber over to the Tunnel Road Waffle House because they had never been in one. They wanted the novelty of it but only because Waffle House seemed “cool” again. I have nothing against Waffle House itself, as it is a tried-and-true weather vane in our age of climate disasters as well as a reliable joint for those horrible days when you need breakfast and a good snotty cry at 2am and it’s a great evener-outer of the social landscape, a place to sit elbow to elbow with politicians and houseless folks. It was once an un-Instagrammable diner and probably will be again one day. It’s having a moment.
What my dad meant by living and avoiding the drive-thru was getting as close to community as possible, in all its mundane atom-sized pieces. And that meant stopping to notice it all. This can be uncomfortable. To stop. It was for me, at least. And it’s not about how good or bad diner food tastes, but how it tastes when you’re sitting with nothing else but the time to pay attention to it and the people around you.
The real rural diner is a sad place, a happy place, a place where arguments break out and prayers are muttered over plates of egg salad. It’s a place that simply is. And it’s made up of the regulars. I want to be around them. The people who need a meat-and-three to stay at the same price it has for the last ten years, not because they can’t afford an extra dollar or two — many of them can — but because they need some things to stay the same, somehow. They need the world to not spin so fast and leave them behind. Or maybe there’s no longer even a fear of that. Fear seems to be the only emotion missing when I walk through the doors of the Old Richmond Grill. Everything is set, laminated, determined. You have choices, but not too many. You can linger here, outside the demands of time and existential dread, and sip coffee as long as you need. Read the paper made of actual paper. No one will ask you to leave. They’ll wait until you’re ready, because I think somehow everyone in the diner knows why we’re all here. We all know we need a break. And we will need to be ready not just for the check when it comes, but also for what’s outside, waiting to sweep us up again.
What I’m spinning: Lonely and Blue - The Deepest Soul of Otis Redding
What I’m reading: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Question: Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. Do you have a favorite diner or did you have one when you were young? I’d love to hear about it.