The Beauty of the American Diner

the perfect egg bite and cinnamon rolls

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The outside of the building is a bright robin’s egg blue with dark brown wooden trim. It sits a little lower than the road, the grade sloping down to meet the grass under the rail fence by the entryway. A life-size statue of a moose (“Please do not sit on me: I’m fragile”) stands guard by the door. A swinging, porch-style door opens into a drafty entryway, but a step into the main room brings you into a steamy warmth scented with coffee and bacon.

A waitress yells to the kitchen, “I got a two, two, two.” This is the classic diner breakfast — two pancakes, two eggs, and two slices of your choice of bacon or sausage.

A carved wooden sign blocks the entry into the diner. It has a seam in the middle and hinges on either side. Right now it reads, “Sit anywhere.” When they get busy, a waitress will flip the sign on its hinges so it reads, “Please wait to be seated.”

I take in the room. Two older gentlemen sit in the back corner. Their conversation centers around an upcoming surgery. A young couple sit in the middle of the room. They’re wearing their sunglasses inside, holding their coffee mugs in between their hands like their own beating hearts, and their shoulders are draped in thick and fuzzy oversized flannels.