Jelly Omelets: The Sweet-Meets-Savory Breakfast Experiment
Few dishes better capture the quirky, anything-goes spirit of old diners than the jelly omelet. This dish is exactly what it sounds like: a classic folded omelet filled with fruit jelly. Sweet-salty combinations are trendy today, but this eggy-fruity combo takes it to another level. Most modern breakfast spots wouldn’t dare put this on their menu today, but back then it was considered perfectly normal comfort food.
Diners embraced it because it fit neatly into the category of homestyle cooking that these kinds of establishments specialized in. Back then, people often came to diners to get the type of food they enjoyed at home, when they were out of town or didn’t want to cook. So, this kind of popular everyday meal was ideal. The combination might sound bizarre to us now, but it actually makes sense when you think about how pancakes work with syrup. Still, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone willing to make one today unless you specifically ask.
Rice Pudding: The Forgotten Dessert Champion
These days, rice pudding has largely vanished from diner menus. It hasn’t disappeared entirely; some retro-style spots still keep it alive. But it has been overshadowed by more modern desserts. In the 1920s, rice pudding began appearing on diner menus across the United States, giving a sticky carbohydrate and sugar boost to everyone who stuck in a spoon. Diner-made rice pudding, oven-cooked, studded with raisins (not as controversially as what Drake did with them) and topped with cream, became a go-to dish, especially in the North.
Cakes, pies, and elaborate sundaes took over as diners leaned into items that felt more indulgent. Rice pudding started to feel like a retro dessert that people didn’t necessarily want to pay for at the end of their meal. The shift toward more visually impressive desserts basically killed off this humble comfort food. Now it’s more likely something your grandmother makes at home than something you’d order after a burger.
Oyster Stew: When Seafood Was Diner Fare
Oysters may not sound like classic diner fare today, but for much of the 20th century, oyster stew was just that. There were regional variations of oyster stew, so what was available locally varied. In New England, for instance, it was a simple dish of fresh oysters, butter, milk or cream, and a touch of seasoning. In the Southern states, it tended to have more ingredients, like onions, celery, and cayenne pepper. It was especially popular in coastal regions where oysters were abundant, but even inland diners served it thanks to canned oysters.
It might sound like a fancy dish for a diner, but oysters were inexpensive and plentiful in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This meant they were cheap enough for everyday people to enjoy. By the time diners were thriving in the mid-1900s, oyster stew was a classic that could be found on most menus. But as oyster populations dwindled and prices rose, the dish lost its place on the standard diner menu. Changing tastes also played a role. These days, most people go to diners for pancakes, burgers, fries, and milkshakes rather than a seafood stew. You’ll likely find oyster stew in seafood restaurants, but in diners, it has basically disappeared.
Chicken à la King: The Fallen Royalty of Comfort Food
At the beginning of the 20th century, chicken à la king was the pinnacle of upscale comfort food in New York City. In that era, almost anything with a vaguely-sounding French name was adopted by appetites of the rich and powerful. That said, it’s not French, and, there are several NYC restaurant chefs claiming the origin of the dish, most notably: Delmonico’s, the Brighton Beach Hotel, and, the Plaza. Chicken a la King was extremely popular in the 50s and 60s. So popular that you would think it was created during that time period but it was actually created in the late 19th century.
In the 1950’s, chicken à la king was a staple on the menus of elegant wedding receptions, expensive banquets, and, fancy sit-down in-home dinner parties all across America. It was such a prevalent dish during the mid-century that writer Calvin Trillin was wondering where its whereabouts were in an article for The Saturday Evening Post as it used to be everywhere from club dinners to weddings and almost every restaurant. The dish basically got caught up in the movement away from cream-heavy, old-fashioned fare as diners started preferring simpler, more casual foods.
Tuna Casserole: The Canned Comfort Classic
By the 1980s and 1990s, diners were shifting toward burgers, club sandwiches, and fries as their core offerings, while tuna casserole started to feel like something best left to potlucks or family dinner tables. The reliance on canned ingredients also made the dish feel like a relic from the past, and not what people wanted to spend their hard-earned cash on. This shift really hurt dishes that depended heavily on processed ingredients to keep costs down.
Today, tuna casserole has mostly disappeared from diner menus, though it lives on in family kitchens and retro cookbooks. It still has a place in many hearts as an iconic diner food, even if fans have to recreate it at home. The unfortunate reality is that what was once considered a hearty, economical meal now feels outdated and overly processed. Most diners today would rather focus on fresh ingredients and simpler preparations.
Salisbury Steak: The TV Dinner That Lost Its Way
Diners across the country came up with their versions: Ground beef patties were shaped and browned in a skillet, before being covered with thick mushroom gravy and baked until the meat was cooked. It was often served with mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes, and, as a menu item, Salisbury steak was relatively cheap for diner owners, but hearty and filling enough to satisfy even the hungriest diner. The dish was a perfect example of how diners could take simple ingredients and make them feel special.
Unfortunately, it was also a victim of its own success. The 1950s boom in frozen and canned foods saw lots of much-loved recipes swept up in the trend for convenience cooking. The final nail in the coffin for Salisbury steak was the decline of T.V. dinners in the 1980s. Nostalgic home cooks might rustle up this beefy dish from time to time, but it’s a rare sight in 21st-century American diners. The association with frozen meals basically killed its reputation as something worth ordering out.
Turkey Devonshire: The Forgotten Open-Faced Marvel
It was a resounding hit in Pittsburgh’s restaurants and soon made its way onto diner menus. There has been much online speculation about whether the turkey Devonshire was actually a twist on Welsh rarebit or Louisville’s hot brown, but diner customers didn’t care: They loved the cheesy, meaty open sandwich. This dish represented everything people loved about hearty, comfort-oriented diner food back in the day.
Unfortunately, the turkey Devonshire was another made-from-scratch dish that fell victim to the boom in processed foods in the 1950s and 1960s. As American diner owners capitalized on lower-cost ingredients, from heavy bread to pre-made sauces, the quality of the dish nosedived, leading to an inevitable knock-on effect on demand. The turkey Devonshire has since returned to the hands of higher-end restaurant chefs, who are breathing new life into this once-loved dish. Perhaps it won’t be long before it’s back in diners, too. It’s a perfect example of how mass production can ruin a good thing.
Buckwheat Pancakes: The Earthy Alternative
Like the French galettes made from the same flour, buckwheat pancakes were darker and had a more earthy taste than those made from white flour or more luxurious ingredients. In America, diner patrons loved them for breakfast, but they were popular in both sweet and savory dishes. These weren’t your typical fluffy pancakes – they had character and a distinct nutty flavor that set them apart from everything else on the menu.
The decline of buckwheat pancakes probably has more to do with changing tastes than anything else. People started gravitating toward lighter, fluffier pancakes that felt more indulgent and less health-conscious. The darker color and stronger flavor of buckwheat probably seemed too rustic for diners trying to compete with chain restaurants offering more standardized fare. Today, you’re more likely to find them at trendy brunch spots than traditional diners.
Chicken Fried Steak: Still Around But Different
The popularity of Chicken fried steak has led to its increased availability from diners to five-star restaurants and diversity in serving styles from burgers to breakfast platters. We serve it as a Chicken Fried Steak Omelet or a Country Benedict. Chicken-fried steak remains extremely popular throughout Texas. While this dish hasn’t disappeared completely, it’s definitely changed from its original diner form.
While its origins are contested, scholars speculate that the schnitzel-like dish was brought to Texas by German immigrants who settled in the Hill Country in the 19th century. The traditional version was much simpler and more straightforward than the elaborate variations you see today. Most modern diners either don’t serve it at all or have dressed it up with fancy gravy and premium cuts of meat that would have been unthinkable in the original versions.
Liver and Onions: The Polarizing Classic
For those craving a taste of nostalgia, liver and onions remains a beloved, albeit divisive, classic. It’s one of those contentious foods that people seem to either love or hate. Variations exist across the world, and many folks flock to it for liver’s nutritional value. In America, it reached the height of its popularity during and shortly after World War II when the U.S. government launched a campaign to bring organ meats to the American dinner table so more popular cuts of pork and beef could be shipped to soldiers overseas.
While you can still find liver and onions at some diners, it’s become increasingly rare on most menus. The wartime necessity that made it popular is long gone, and most younger customers have never developed a taste for organ meats. If you were to crowd-source suggestions for where to find liver and onions, Luby’s nostalgic French Grilled Liver and Onions would undoubtedly be the most frequent reply. Famous for its square fish, chicken fried steak, blackened tilapia, Angus chopped steak, creamy macaroni and cheese, fried okra and much more, this retro chain of cafeteria-style restaurants has endured in Texas since 1947. Most places that still serve it are deliberately nostalgic establishments catering to older customers.
Beef Stroganoff: From Russian Nobility to Diner Obscurity
Beef Stroganoff, also spelled beef Stroganov, is a Russian dish of sautéed pieces of beef in a sauce of mustard and smetana (heavy sour cream). It is named after one of the members of the Stroganov family. Since its appearance in the 19th century, it has become popular around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe. In 1960s United States, several manufacturers introduced dehydrated beef stroganoff mixes, which were mixed with cooked beef and sour cream. It was also available freeze-dried for campers.
The dish became incredibly popular in American diners during the mid-20th century, but like many cream-based dishes, it fell out of favor as tastes shifted toward lighter, simpler fare. In the version often prepared in the United States today in restaurants and hotels, it consists of strips of beef filet with a mushroom, onion, and sour cream sauce, and is served over rice or noodles. The convenience mixes that made it popular in diners also contributed to its decline, as they often produced inferior versions that damaged the dish’s reputation. Today, you’re more likely to find it at upscale establishments than at your local diner.
Welsh Rarebit: The Fancy Toast That Fooled Everyone
Despite its exotic-sounding name, Welsh Rarebit wasn’t actually from Wales and definitely didn’t contain any rabbit. This glorified cheese toast became a diner staple in the early 1900s, fooling customers into thinking they were ordering something far more sophisticated than melted cheese on bread. The dish consisted of a rich cheese sauce made with beer, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce, poured over toasted bread and broiled until bubbly. Diners loved it because it sounded classy but cost pennies to make. The name itself was likely a joke – “rarebit” being a playful twist on “rabbit,” since poor Welsh folks supposedly ate cheese instead of meat. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find this cheesy delight on any menu, even though it’s essentially the gourmet ancestor of our beloved grilled cheese sandwich.
