You'll Never Find, Another Love Like Mine

Diner Meal

If there is one thing I miss about the old New York is all the mom and pop eateries and diners that disappeared in the last 3 years only to be replaced by high end establishments.  Diners are dwindling everywhere and like old records and book stores, they are not easily re-created.  Time gave these institutions their value, the staff who worked there for decades, the booths that could tell stories, the weathered grills.  

We lost our neighborhood staple, one that had been open for 35 years just before the pandemic.  In reality, the food wasn't great and it had gotten as expensive as a normal restaurant, so perhaps it is for the best that we try to recreate these meals in our homes.  I made one of my diner favorites, a cheeseburger on toast and for added kitsch, I made a boxed mac and cheese for lunch.  In my old haunt, they would stack the cheeseburger like a BLT on 3 pieces of bread and add bacon, lettuce and tomato to the top deck.  It was a dream.

For breakfast I served poached eggs and bacon over toast.  In the diner, I would have chosen rye bread and be served a slew of greasy breakfast potatoes as a side that I would drown in hot sauce and ketchup, as the waitress made sure my coffee cup stayed full and called me 'hon when she asked if I needed anything more.  The waiters, busboys and line cooks were all in a dance during breakfast and lunch and if you walked in, you felt the rhythm and got in-line until you finally stood at the register paying your check and left back in the fresh air picking your teeth and feeling satisfied. 

Closed now for almost 4 years

Your Good Thing (Is About to End)

In the early fall I await the annual Atlantic Antic Festival. We are so close and its fun to walk the length of the Avenue and see all the businesses celebrating and displaying their best offerings.
Unfortunately its been so long ago and I'm just now getting to writing this that I've forgotten where and what we ate there. It was all super good though.
It was cool and we always enjoy it but I couldn't help but feeling a little like the thrill was gone this year. Sort of like the last time you go trick or treating. The band we like that plays classic rock sounded and looked as tired as I felt. Then almost symbolically the keyboard fell off its little pedestal to its death mid song. We moved along.
Anna Copacabana go-go dancing at the Last Exit tends to always be my favorite attraction. She didn't disappoint. Her sidekick however didn't have her heart in it anymore you could tell. She had them far away eyes. I thought to myself, I totally feel ya honey. I'm right there with ya. I'd rather be fishin'.

We kept walking.

Hanks was rockin' it heavy with Alex Battles and the Whiskey Rebellion until it started to rain so we skidoodled it out of there and onto a couple of fat Not Ray's Pizza slices and headed home.

All in all it was a fun day but I couldn't wait to get out of my little get up and boots and into my drunken clown clothes.