My friends and family call me "the diner queen," and for good reason -- I've hit almost every diner in northern New Jersey at least once. My lifelong search for the perfect cup of coffee and my all-consuming passion for French Toast -- plus a penchant for late-night dining -- have put me in more diners than I care to admit. For years, these traits were perceived as mere personality quirks, until I met Peter Genovese, who chronicled my adventures in his book, Jersey Diners.
I guess it was fate that I was born and bred in New Jersey, the diner capital of the world, and that I had parents who allowed me to drink coffee at an early age. In Jersey City, where I grew up, there were a lot of local 24-hour hangouts, some of which were not diners per se. In that category, my favorite place was Tippy's Charcoal Haven on Kennedy Boulevard in Jersey City Heights. When my good Catholic mother found out that I was skipping Sunday Mass for breakfast at Tippy's, she blew a fuse. After that, my little hideaway was referred to as "Saint Tippy's Charcoal Altar."
Diners provided the aftermath to many important occasions in my life. After the junior-year ring ceremony at Saint Dominic Academy, a lot of the girls went to the local Chinese restaurant to try and "get served," but I was eating a cheeseburger deluxe (and drinking you- know-what) at the VIP Diner. On Senior Prom night, after a romp in Manhattan, we all headed to the Coach House in North Bergen for an early-morning snack. That night, I noticed (as I did many times afterwards) that the funny feeling in my stomach from the Tequila Sunrises I had grown fond of would dissipate after my first cup of "Coach Coffee." During my college years at Montclair State, I was munching on meat loaf at the Primrose (now the Six Brothers) and the Tick Tock diners. When I started to work full time and spend my summer weekends at the Jersey shore, I gobbled up the French Toast in the after-hours at the OB (Ocean Bay) in Point Pleasant and Pat's in Belmar.
Over the last several years, I've turned my affections toward the shrinking pool of original, vintage diners in our state. One cold February afternoon, my three girlfriends and I embarked on a "diner hop" of several authentic Jersey diners. After breakfast at the pocket-sized Park Diner in Montclair and a mid-afternoon snack at the well preserved Harris Diner in East Orange, we ended up at Max's Grill in Harrison [the oldest diner in NJ, dating back to the '20s]. We discovered that, besides being an authentic diner, Max's converts into a pool hall and cocktail lounge on Sunday afternoon, apparently to the satisfaction of its Portuguese male clientele. (Although I saw "Ladies Invited" scrawled in old-fashioned script on the front door, I didn't take it seriously until I got in!) My friends and I got a couple of weird looks, but people warmed up. It w as like being in a time warp, and the kicker was that it cost only eight bucks for a round of drinks!
When you're a diner queen, everyone you know (and sometimes, people you don't know) keep you informed on anything diner. People send me pictures of out-of-state diners they've visited, as well as newspaper and magazine articles. I have a postcard of a diner proprietor who posed as part of a freelance photographer's self-promotion. But my best story, be it ever so cliche, is that I fell in love at a diner.
Several years ago, I discovered Lucy's Diner, a pint-sized 1950s original in Verona that serves huge portions of homemade Italian food. In March 1996, after the interminable "winter from hell," I stopped in to see Lucy. I started to talk with her brother and co-owner, Jack, and without warning, my womanly intuition sensed his small, interested stare.... an eagerness to make me laugh...a hand on my shoulder. Jack invited me to the diner's annual Easter open house [coffee, homemade zeppoles and Italian pastries -- how could I resist?], and within two weeks, we were in Atlantic City on our first date. Two years later, we're a loving couple who's known for our keen affection and teenage playfulness.
Although I'm still on the lookout for new diners, my eye doesn't wander as much any more. I still "ooh and aah" when I pass a classic "tin can," and I make time to revisit my old hangouts. But now I go where the heart is.
The Diner Queen finally found her king.
North Bergen, NJ
August 12, 1998