A Guide to Destinations and Dining
DESTINATIONS
Perry, NY
Each summer, thousands of visitors travel along NY Route 39 and the Genesee Valley to enter Letchworth State Park, the Grand Canyon of the East, or plan a getawa...
Diners and Dinors
A sampling of diners, and a dinor, in Western NY and along the Erie Lakeshore.
My first memory of a diner is going with my dad to his shop on Saturday morning when I was around 8. We would stop and have lunch at Meeder’s Dairy Bar, in Ripley, NY. I’d climb up on a stool, and although I don’t remember what I ate, I remember the woman behind the counter pouring coffee (dressed all in white, including her shoes). I remember my dad’s side order of French fries with gravy (my first poutine!) and I remember that he’d often order a slice of pie or we’d share a milkshake.
After returning to WNY a few years ago, I met a friend at the Zodiac Dinor in Erie, PA. It’s a fun, funky place—I still remember the Banana Bread French Toast—but I mostly wondered why it was spelled “dinor.” A quick search told me the unusual spelling was mainly limited to northwest PA. When I asked a friend who grew up in Erie, his response was, “It’s an Erie thing—don’t ask me why.”
I began to wonder, what makes a diner a diner? Or a dinor? Breakfast served all day? A never-ending cup of coffee? A certain aesthetic? Self-designation? Does the architecture matter? A counter (and booths) to sit at? What are must-haves on the menu? Pancakes? Biscuits and gravy? A patty melt? Homemade pies? How have diners changed over the years? I thought it would be fun to find out, so I set off on a diner tour (albeit limited) of Western NY and the Erie Lakeshore.
Photo 1: Woodlawn Diner in Blasdell, NY
Photo 2: Potato pancakes and a Western omelet at the Woodlawn Diner.
WOODLAWN DINER, BLASDELL, NY
My mother joined me on my first visit as we headed to Woodlawn Diner in Blasdell, NY. The diner has been around for about 80 years since the height of Bethlehem Steel’s operations in Lackawanna and recently had a retro refresh by new owners. My mom was immediately transported back to the 1950s and after a few minutes said, “You know how you ask me what music I listened to growing up? This is it.” The Elvis-heavy list played the top hits of 1957: Pat Boone, the Everly Brothers, and Debbie Reynolds, among others.
We ordered the day’s special: their popular potato pancakes, served with applesauce and sour cream, crispy bacon and a Western omelet (the addition of red and yellow peppers to the usual green was a nice touch). Let’s just say, we cleaned our plates. We were told stories of the neighborhood—one child who lives down the street has been coming in since he was too little to cut his French toast and now comes in by himself to get a milkshake. Customers born in the ’40s remember their parents bringing them into the diner. As we were walking out, my mom saw the old milkshake machines and asked if they made them with hard ice cream. They do, so we’ll definitely be going back for one.
Photo 1: Breakfast tacos at the Swan Street Diner
Photo 2: A poppyseed waffle at the Swan Street Diner
SWAN STREET DINER, LARKINVILLE, NY
Next, we headed to Swan Street Diner, opened in 2017 in a beautifully restored early Sterling Company diner car made by the J.B. Judkins Company that was relocated to Larkinville. Larkinville is a fun food and beverage destination, and we arrived at lunch time. We were greeted with a friendly hello and after a short wait, we joined a mix of regulars, a few tourists, and workers on their lunch break. It wasn’t hard to think what it might be like to step back in time to its original life as the Newark Diner in Newark, NY, in the late 1930s.
We ate deliciously crispy breakfast tacos with house-made hash, house pico and pickled radish, and a lemon poppyseed waffle that didn’t need butter or maple syrup, but both made it over-the-top good. After her previous miss, my mom ordered a strawberry milkshake—the syrups are all made in-house.
Photo 1: The Lawrence Park Dinor in Erie, PA, a prefab diner car brought to the area in 1948.
Photo 2: Breakfast sampler at the Lawrence Park Dinor
LAWRENCE PARK DINOR, ERIE, PA
Lawrence Park Dinor is on the National Register of Historic Places, and started serving diners in 1948 in the community designed and built by General Electric. The building is a Silk City Dining Car, built in Paterson, NJ, and you immediately feel a sense of nostalgia. It’s small, authentic and feels almost like time has stopped. You’re immediately greeted with a hello, and although the new owners took over in March, you would never know, as they welcomed most everyone by name. According to one “dinor” story, the spelling was a mistake on advertising. It was believed that it might attract more customers, which it did, so they left it and others copied.
I ordered the breakfast sampler: perfectly cooked over-easy eggs, wheat toast with an excessively tasty amount of butter, crisp bacon, home fries, and instead of having to choose, one pancake and one French toast. All in the name of research...
I was intrigued by one item on the menu, the Greek omelet, which sounded much different than the Greek omelet I’m more familiar with. This one was smothered in a spicy meat sauce and I learned that many Erie restaurants have their own version of this sauce. The recipe for this dinor’s sauce had been passed down from owner to owner and it also is offered on burgers, hot dogs or French fries.
While each of these restaurants had most of the things I initially felt were required of a diner, I found something else: community. Diners are an integral part of the neighborhoods they have existed in for years. Where regulars come to read the paper. Where staff remember how you take your coffee or ask if you want “your usual.” Where new ownership wants to keep old traditions alive. So what really makes a great diner? A sense of being welcomed whether you are known or not. A great server. A bit of nostalgia. Add a side of history, and a helping of stainless steel and chrome finishes. Endless cups of coffee and probably something that isn’t on your diet. And for my mom, an old-school milkshake.
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