Diners, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. We love you for your food: the well-seared burgers gobbled late at night, the pancakes eaten with a side of bacon early in the morning, and the pita sandwiches bulging with pork kebabs for an early supper. And don’t forget the lime-green Jell-O that has defied the ravages of time, the tuna salad sandwiches that have retained their salty tang even though we can no longer find tuna like that in the supermarket, and the french fries, curly fries, steak fries, crinkle cuts, shoestrings, and, especially, the crusty hash browns, so good we could never make them like that at home.
We love you for your cakes and pies — especially coconut cream and apple with a scoop of ice cream — and the fact that you’re often still open 24 hours, though we wonder who is there in the wee-est of hours. We treasure your antique appearance, the comfortability of booths and twirling stools, and the fact that we can sneak up on you unbeknownst to Resy and Open Table. We love that no one is recording in some data mine what we we have eaten or how much we have spent.
We love that you have not turned into a fast-casual places where there is no gabby waitress or machine suggesting we pay a large tip up front. We love that you look old and worn, like a suit forgotten at the back of the closet. We love that you are still here despite relentless gentrification that has uprooted restaurants of similar vintage, your prices having crept up only a little; we love that we can still afford you even when money is tight, and that no one is asking us to finish up in 45 minutes because the table is already committed.
And we love you because we know you love us back!
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