America's Cafes and Diners: Are They Disappearing?

I decided I wanted a cup of fresh coffee and a little breakfast this morning before making a dreaded trip to Wal-Mart. I reasoned the best place for such a thing would be a cafe. I drive to one located on the square in a small town named Berryville. It is closed.

It got me thinking about my town, Green Forest has in terms of a genuine mom and pop cafe. Well, there's the newest one, The Country Rooster. It has excellent food and you can browse through the flea market and antiques section. It also provides a discount grocery section for one's convince.

Jim's Drive-In, the best place in the world for hamburgers and onion rings. It has several booths lined along one wall, inside lighting is not so noticeable because you can look at the front window and check out the vast array of houseplants. It's also a gathering place for people after a hometown game where talk is of how the Green Forest Tigers beat so and so. It's a drive-in, not a diner or cafe.

The Mattox Restaurant. It's changed hands through the years. Recently repainted and remodeled inside. While I haven't personally ate there since it changed hands, the parking lot is full in the mornings and I do hear they have good food. It's too fresh, too new.

On my way to Wal-Mart, there is one other place, the Bowling Alley. I don't know how long it's been there, but I've been in this area close to twenty-five years and it looked old then. During a writer's conference held in Eureka Springs, my husband and I went there and bowled a few games. I sucked. I enjoy their food and rarely eat there but I think I may stop in for coffee a couple times a week just to hear the conversation a little more often. I realize this is where America's heartbeat is and I think it's dying.

I fortunately, live in an area where these wonderful places still thrive to this day, but it's slowly being swallowed up by fast food chains with harsh lights and hard booths. Some have opted to close down three instead of two days to save money. Others closed down and shuttered the windows because of the economic issues that plague us all.

What I find charming about small town cafes and diners are the old men who gather in them at six o'clock in the morning and then again early afternoon to discuss political issues and laugh at each other about something or another. You can tell what time of the year it is by listening to them discuss cutting hay, or sowing hay, plowing the fields and storing hay. I've noticed that old men who hang out for the coffee drinking like to give each other a hard time. This includes everything from still able to get up and around, to the wife's cooking, to getting the cow who got out of the pasture. I don't know what exactly happened but his pals made sure he got a good jab in the ribs about it.

America's cafes and diners are heavy ceramic plates and coffee mugs. Cushioned booths and long Formica covered counter complete with red vinyl seats and chrome stools. There could be a glass display of your favorite pie, Cherry for me please. They may be encased on shelves or in those quaint dome covered pedestal with a paper doily, making it that much more appealing and tempting to buy a slice. You want ice cream with that?

I do not make it to many big cities often. Oklahoma City was the last place I visited that had a population of more than ten thousand. We ate at Golden Corral, love the food, but it's commercial. I wasn't really paying attention to cafes and diners at the time since that was six months ago. My husband and I were on our way home after spending the night in OKC. We were there to see a concert which was a blast, but we wanted food and looking for someplace convenient so we could get home quicker was our agenda. However, thinking back on it, I don't recall seeing anything of the sort in Oklahoma City. Not close by, but we were near the interstate and the hotel offered breakfast (we slept too late to enjoy that). When we went to see my brother-in-law who lives in California, we brought food. That trip was five years ago, but I do remember seeing skeletons of cafes, gas stations and tourist stops of an era long gone.

Classic places such as Shoney's and Steak and Shake have to take their place here because they've been around for so long, might as well include A & W Root beer, ahh, those heavy frosted mugs!

Right down to black and white checkered floors and the tiny jukeboxes stationed at your table and narrow tubes of yellow neon lights are fading away. While there are places who attempt a retro, it's not the same as an original. These tucked away havens were the backbone of America. A place where a family could go have a thick chocolate shake on a hot summer evening, or a young couple could go share a soda and fries after a movie.

Of course, some eateries I've been to belong in a horror novel.

I don't think America is in danger of losing these landmarks just yet. I watched a great show on the Food Network and couple nights back titled "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and was comforted by the fact there are some really great places out there in America serving delicious foods. Judging from occupancy in the show, most of them have a large following and made me want to take a month off from work just to check them out

I wonder though, how many years it will take before these places are nothing but a memory?