American diners are dying. I visited the diner capital of America to find out if they can survive.

• American diners are a dying breed. I visited two in New Jersey, the diner capital of the US, and spoke with the owners.
• The two were very different. One focused on expansion and innovation; the other was more traditional.
• After my visits, I’m more optimistic than ever that American diners aren’t going anywhere.

Diners are disappearing across America. From the 1950s to the 2000s, the number in the US dropped from roughly 6,000 to 2,500.

I’ve seen headlines decrying a 50-year-old one becoming a marijuana dispensary and a San Fransico institution that closed after eight decades.

But are American diners truly on their way out? I went to New Jersey’s busiest diner, and one of the state’s oldest, to find out.

New Jersey is the diner capital of America, boasting more than any other state. But even there, it’s estimated that 150 have closed in the last decade.

I visited Tops Diner in East Newark, New Jersey, on a Wednesday morning.

Located just a 45-minute drive outside Manhattan, Tops is in a prime location to get traffic from New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. It serves nearly 13,000 people a week.

Right off the bat, I was shocked by how huge it was.

Tops is a far cry from the diners of my youth. Four hundred people can squeeze into these tan booths. Dozens of workers buzz around the floor. And music blasts overhead.

I was also surprised at how packed it was on a Wednesday morning.

For the middle of the week, I thought it’d be quieter. Boy, was I wrong. Behind the scenes, the kitchen was firing food nonstop. Cooks go through 21,600 eggs a week. Stephen McCormick, the Executive Chef of Tops, told me people order pasta with Alfredo sauce at 8 in the morning, and stacks of pancakes late at night.

The menu is massive.

Many of the plates pull inspiration from around the world: a Mexico City burger, Dominican Breakfast, beignets, Lomo Saltado, and Bang Bang Shrimp. The prices were steeper than I was expecting: $7 for a chai latte and $27 for eggplant Parmesan.

The Latin Steak and Eggs were delicious.

I tried a lot of dishes. The big serving of fried chicken and waffles ($26) had a nice crisp to it. The waffles were big and fluffy.

I had never seen Philly cheesesteak egg rolls on a diner menu before.

The egg rolls ($15) came with a sweet and spicy Thai chili and honey mustard sauce. I was impressed with how much Philly cheesesteak flavor they packed into a tiny bite. But these were so rich that I probably wouldn’t be able to eat a full order alone.

My favorite bite? The tower of Disco Fries.

This is a New Jersey classic: a pile of fries smothered in gravy and topped with melty mozzarella. The gravy was rich, the cheese deliciously springy, and the fries somehow held their crunch. This is such an indulgent dish. I can see why Disco Fries are a favorite late-night eat in the state.

Despite its size, Tops makes a lot of food from scratch.

To make the gravy for the Disco Fries, the restaurant roasts vegetables and bones for 24 hours. Cooks hand roll those Philly Cheesesteak eggrolls. They smash avocados through a cooling rack for guacamole.

There’s even a butcher room.

The restaurant serves meat from Pat LaFrieda, the same supplier of burgers to Shake Shack and prime cuts to Brooklyn’s oldest steakhouse, Peter Luger. In addition to Pat LaFrieda, Tops’ Executive Chef Stephen slices many of the cuts himself.

A full bake shop overlooks one side of the restaurant.

Here, a team of bakers pumps out pancake batter, expertly fills cheesecake molds, and swiftly decorates Tres Leches cakes. I was floored to learn they were even making their own syrup for pancakes.

Owner Jimmy Golemis says his diner is a unicorn.

Golemis says diners are becoming extinct because owners face long working hours. It’s a tough business to be in, and diner bosses burn out. He credits volume and constant innovation for Tops’ success. Recently, in 2020, Golemis and his brothers renovated the restaurant, adding more seats and parking, ultimately tripling the space.

For more on the rise and fall of American diners, check out the video below. Keep reading to learn about one of New Jersey’s oldest diners.Tops stretched the definition of a diner.

After my meal at Tops, I left wondering if this place can still be considered a diner. It’s more expensive and expansive than any I’d ever seen. But that scale has allowed Golemis to experiment with new flavors and bring in a lot of hungry eaters. Is this the diner of the future?

I went to one of New Jersey’s oldest diners to see if there’s still a place for tradition.

I went on another Wednesday morning, and just like Tops, Summit Diner was buzzing. Located in Summit, New Jersey, the diner opened in 1928. It’s one of the oldest left in the state and one of the last remaining examples of a pre-fabricated diner manufactured by the Jerry O’Mahony Diner Company.

The Jerry O’Mahony Company was one of the biggest diner manufacturers in the US.

Diners can trace their roots back to Rhode Island in the 1870s. First, they were horse-drawn lunch wagons serving sandwiches to newspaper workers on the night shift.

But it was New Jersey’s factories that built most of the pre-fabricated diners shipped across the US in the 20th century.

It’s estimated that the Jerry O’Mahony Company built 2,000 diners by the time it shuttered in the 1950s.

The Summit Diner feels like a movie set.

Owner Jimmy Greberis’ family bought Summit Diner in 1964 after immigrating from Greece. Greberis started working here when he was 19. Over the last 40 years, he’s seen the clientele shift from Wall Street bigwigs to everyday construction workers.

But much of the interior hasn’t changed since the 1930s.

The tiled floor, mahogany walls, neon red stools and booths, and tables are all from 1939. Greberis said these original touches are expensive to maintain and hard to replace because the company that built this diner went out of business in the 1950s.

I loved that it’s still cash only.

I spoke with Summit employee Maelin Mejis, who said that when she was first hired, the waitresses were practically singing. She’d memorize the orders and holler to the cooks: “Two eggs over easy. One corned beef hash!” Now, she dances around the restaurant, writing down orders with a pen and paper and figuring out tabs with a calculator. No credit cards are in sight.

The menu stretches across the top of the restaurant.

There was no paper menu. You just look up and scan. I found that it allowed for a lot more conversation with the staff when I was looking up at a menu instead of looking down. And unlike Tops, Summit only had a few dozen options to choose from, so I didn’t find it overwhelming.

Summit’s specialty is another New Jersey classic: The Taylor Ham Egg and Cheese Roll.

This was the first time I’d ever tried a Taylor Ham roll. I was blown away. Somehow, the sandwich tasted nostalgic to me. Salty pork paired perfectly with melty American cheese and a Natale’s soft roll, baked up the road.

I loved that the menu stuck to the classics like pancakes, corned beef hash, and omelets.

Dare I say the pancakes were better than Tops’? They’re fluffy, with a nice crust on the outside. Smothered in syrup, they feel like a warm hug.

Greberis says he’ll never put avocado on the menu. And I respect that.

He’s tried experimenting with fruit, but people don’t order it. And avocado? He said he won’t serve it because it goes bad quickly, and his team doesn’t know how to work with it. After 40 years in the business, Greberis says he knows what works best, and he sticks to the classics.

I don’t drink coffee normally, but there was something so cozy about the dark brew constantly flowing into big mugs.

It’s clear how much Summit means to the town, and how much Greberis has put back into the community. He gets bread from Natale’s, a local bakery. That giant log of Taylor Ham comes from an hour up the road.

I was sad when I heard Greberis say that Summit Diner might end with him.

Labor’s gotten more expensive, and food costs have soared. Eggs surged from $1.20 a dozen before COVID to $8.60. They’ve since leveled out to $3.75. Small diners like this just don’t have the volume to be able to absorb those costs. Greberis had to raise his prices, but at $9.25 an omelet, nearly half the price of Tops’, his prices still seem more than fair.

Despite surviving all these challenges, a more humble threat might spell the end of Summit. Greberis’ kids don’t want to take over the family restaurant. He worries about selling the business to another family because he said the land is worth more than the business, and they might tear it down. I wondered, could it even be Summit Diner without Jimmy?

I think nostalgia, Greberis, and his staff have kept this place going.

The pancakes and Taylor Ham were amazing. But more than the food, this place is a vibe. It’s comforting. You feel like you’ve known the staff for years, even if you just walked through the doors. It’s as if the whole town squeezes into just a few booths. The mayor just happened to be eating lunch the day we visited!

I left Tops and Summit with a lot more optimism than I thought I would. I don’t think diners are going anywhere.

While Summit and Tops have taken two very different approaches to an American diner, I think they represent a path forward for the waning category.

Tops has innovated, firing up bold flavors and slinging out liquor, much to its customers’ delight. Whereas Summit stuck with tradition, and that’s worked because the town revels in its history.

If there’s going to be a future for diners, there has to be room for both kinds. But the real reason I think diners are forever isn’t the food; it’s the people—the owners, cooks, and waitresses who keep the energy humming and the hungry diners who keep coming back for more.

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