Aug 16Diners originally started out traveling on the tracks to get to their final destination!
The combination of cramped booths, a shiny interior, and a menu filled with low-priced comfort foods is truly an American staple. Whether you’re on a road trip or looking for a bite to eat in the morning, it’s always easy to spot a diner. The reason? Many look like train cars.
Diners actually started off being mobile. In 1872, Walter Scott invented the first “night lunch wagon.” He would serve hot, inexpensive meals out of a horse-drawn wagon that he had converted into a car (similar to a modern-day food truck!). Customers would be served out of the wagon’s window and eat their food on the go. After becoming quite popular, the “night lunch wagon” sparked the creation of “rolling restaurants”—a few seats within a car that allowed you to eat while traveling to your destination. Soon after, these on-the-go restaurants started being built into train cars as well. Called “dining cars,” they featured rows of boldly colored booths lined up against the windows and chrome finishes to match the rest of the train. “Dining cars” eventually was shortened to just “diner.” Check out these weird restaurants around the world.
Jerry O’Mahony founded the factory that shipped all of the original pre-fabricated diners across the country, and built the first stationary diner in 1913, with the design modeled after the chrome look of a train car. Since diners were manufactured to be shipped by truck or train, it limited what shape they could be. The shape that made the most sense was that of a classic train car. Soon, diners started popping up all over the United States.
Modern diners today are shaped a little bit differently, however, most still have chrome finishes and tightly arranged booths to give it that locomotive feel. Next, read about where these famous fast food restaurants first started out.
