CAKE DAD: Diner Renaissance

on the return of diners

Hello mes canards, I hope that spring is treating you well. This month’s newsletter is a wee bit different as I slowly jump back into writing essays again! It’s all happening. This week we’re talking crinkle cuts and bottomless coffee. Thank you so much for subscribing! Appreciate you <3
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Recently, I watched Kendra Gaylord’s youtube video, What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable eating. It’s not a long watch and you should absolutely check it out. In it, she discusses the lost refuge of the diners and automats. A space away from home and work where you could get a good meal for $1 ($10 with inflation) and sit and enjoy it regardless of class or race (rare then, rare now). 

Diners fascinated me as a kid. They always seemed so metropolitan and romantic- glowing neon lights and worn booths. I longed to be called “Hun” by a waitress that had seen more than I could imagine.  I grew up somewhere between suburban and rural Ontario. I didn’t really experience diners growing up. The idea of being able to walk anywhere was beyond me- my street didn’t even have sidewalks.  All of my knowledge  of diners came from movies like Grease, Archie comics and Hopper’s Nighthawks. 

When I had the opportunity to go to a diner in the city I jumped on it. I remember dragging friends to diners on high school field trips to Toronto. I was in a drama program where we  would see a theatre performance every semester in the big city. As much as I loved seeing plays, what I really loved was the hour that we would get to be alone for lunch. Alone in the city at 15! The freedom! TV taught me that teenagers love diners. I would diligently scout the area for ¹whatever closest resembled my idea of a “diner”. I would have coffee and french fries then rush to meet up with the rest of our class. 

Diners represent what is known in sociology as third place; a place away from the home or work. Think churches, clubs, and teams; they are necessary for building community and a sense of place. For most of us social media takes on the role of the third place. And though you can have complex important online relationships, a lot of those connections are shallow parasocial interactions. In-person interactions and the routine of a place that you return to - like a diner or church- is infinitely more satisfying to our need for social interaction.

My fascination with diners has come with spending time with the people who frequent them. Night owls and folks who are often looking for a meal at 1am. When my partner AJ has been on tour (filming, doing photography, live cinematography) I have wandered the streets with AJ and Eric San (Kid Koala) seeking late night crinkle fries after² a show. San has a long standing love of diners. Most of Kid Koala’s graphic novel, Nufonia Must Fall, was illustrated at diners. 

Years ago me and my partner AJ went on a trip to New York City. Somehow we missed our midnight bus from Grand Central and were left to wander Manhattan until the next bus to Montreal at 8am. We somehow convinced a hotel to hold onto our luggage. We walked for hours but the only place open was a diner. I had waffle cheese fries and coffee. A person at the next table was having the most New York conversation I’d ever heard, “I just need to get my script into the right hands. Just the right person. Then I’m going to make it big time!” We made our  bus.

Diners aren’t just a place to eat but a place to spend time. We are tired of choosing between fast food or another UberEats meal. Affordable food can be hard to find. Food costs have exploded everywhere. Fast food has become as expensive as some restaurants (A $24 receipt from Five Guys recently went viral on X). Folks are exhausted and stuck choosing between between pricey fast food or another pricey UberEats meal. 

A 1950s automat

Of course we still have plenty of diners in North America but most people don’t know what an automat is anymore (*kind of like a vending machine where you pay with quarters and you can retrieve food from behind  a window. Although the automat lives on in places like Japan. There are vending machines serving hot corn soup and fresh pizza. 7/11s, Family Marts and Lawsons can be found across Japan and Korea serving delicious and reasonably priced food, a place to heat it and a place to eat it. If you’re in a cozy mood I can’t recommend Netflix’s  Midnight Diner enough. It’s an anthology series with each episode taking place at a small diner in Tokyo and the stories of its patrons.

Automat vibes at a Tokyo 7/11

Diner culture is on the up and up in North America. A documentary on the Skyline diner in Toronto narrated by cook and food writer Ivy Knight premiered at Hot Docs last year. And Grub Street reported last month that pastry chef Caroline Shiff would be leaving Gage & Tollner in NYC (where her very retro-inspired baked alaska developed a cult following) to open a diner.

Greenspot Diner in St.Henri

So like, go to a diner! Bring a sketchbook and hang with a friend. Figure out what your usual is. Mine used to be a grilled cheese, fries, and a strawberry shake. It’s fun! There’s old people there. Old people intrinsically understand the value of a diner. The value of the third place. And it’s refreshing to be in such a multigenerational place. A place where 4am diners could be party-goers ending their night or worker’s beginning theirs. Long live the diner!

Favorite Montreal Diners

Beauty's
McMillans 
Greenspot
Zappy's 
Snowden Deli
Wilensky's Light Lunch
Cosmos 

Diner-centric Movies + Television

Grease
Moonlight
Coffee & Cigarettes
Midnight Diner
Waitress
Pulp Fiction
When Harry Met Sally 
Twin Peaks
Riverdale

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Cake orders are officially closed for May and June! 

Speaking of diners, I now have a counter cake at Millman’s in Verdun every week! Always gluten-free. Sometimes dairy, sometimes vegan- depends on how I’m feeling. I’ll be making mostly classic American-style diner cakes. If you’re celiac and want to dine at Millman’s I’ll have a post up on Instagram shortly with all of the information you’ll need! I’ll be posting a coconut cake recipe shortly for paid subscribers.

I was profiled for CTV Montreal. Go check it out!

EATING 

I’ve been eating a mug cake like every night for a month. It’s an obsession to which I’m about 8 years too late.

READING

There are audiobooks on Spotify if that’s your thing. I just finished Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult and am listening to it again because she is so smart and so comforting and so funny about very scary topics that are very real to me (ocd, ed, depression etc)

DRINKING 

Seltzer + bitters. I am always looking for the most aggressively fizzy carbonated water possible. If you know of one. Please send my way.

LISTENING

To all the college students protesting their administration’s complacency and part in the genocide of the Palestinian people. David Roth has a great piece on Defector.

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1.   Freedom for me as a kid was a lot “going to the river for a bit*- not a euphemism.

2. I think of RuPaul’s stories of going to a diner in Atlanta, Georgia after performing drag.where she first first the phrase”She done already done had herses” which she took straight to the bank.