Walking into Vancouver’s Red Wagon, I spied one of the largest men I’ve ever seen. He had a twinkle in his eye, as if the waitress had just served him his favorite dish. Ever. Under his nose, a mound of buttermilk pancakes rose from an oval plate, interspersed with layer upon thick layer of pulled pork. Pinned to the side of the mound with a toothpick was a pair of butter pats. If a customer so wishes, he can also have a pair of eggs, sunny side up or over easy, atop it all for good measure. The man at the table certainly did.
Whether they have been around for a while, or are new spots simply conjuring an older ethos, a handful of diners across North America are shaking things up, putting smarter, better food on the Formica while keeping prices within reach.
“I started years ago with the idea that a little more love could be put into breakfast,” said Red Wagon owner Brad Miller, “and the belief that less expensive didn’t mean less important.”
He’s not kidding. The pancakes clock in at $12.30 ($12.50 Canadian), and they’re the most expensive item on the all-day menu.
Red Wagon, in the former home of a Vietnamese restaurant whose dilapidated sign still clings to the façade, is a fun, funky spot with an old-school diner feel, replete with a clientele in plaid, tattoos and thick-rimmed glasses, indie radio in the background and an impressive beer list. Its proprietors are quietly serious about what they do, or, as a local chef put it, “They’re sourcing fanatics.”
The restaurant’s crisp pork belly sandwich is a bánh mì in all but name, an enormous wink at the restaurant’s former inhabitants, and an incredible one at that. The baguette-like bread is grilled on the inside, giving it a poofy-crunchy texture, and filled with bits of pickled vegetables that have a vinegary snap. The jewel is the meat — salty, crispy and packed with fatty flavor that makes the sandwich sing.
Across the continent and the border, I met an early adapter. Philadelphia’s Silk City Diner opened in 1958 and moved to the wrong side of the tracks two years later. Its owners were content to sling unremarkable burgers, meatloaf, coffee and pie, as it trundled along before petering out in 2006.
Current owner Mark Bee bought the space and spent close to two years renovating, annexing the seedy brick lounge next door and adding a sprawling beer garden in the empty lot just to the east.
Within the confines of the classic silver panels, the change was significant. Philly had become a food town, and Silk City’s new incarnation had to adapt.
“We stepped up our game because we had to. The typical Greek diner isn’t good. It’s frozen stuff so you can have a platter for five bucks,” said Bee. “There’s a place for it, but it’s nasty.”
Instead, the diner upped its game, going through several chefs — including one who lasted just nine days — before turning the spot into a destination. It kept meatloaf, fried chicken and mac and cheese on its menu, now all gussied up. Hand-cut fries and house-made sauces were added. Even chicken wings got a special treatment: dry-rubbed and baked before their traditional bath in the fryer. Silk City also did an eastern Pennsylvania-centric highbrow-lowbrow fusion, making foie gras scrapple.
On the night I visited, my favorite dish was pan-seared shrimp with a cranberry bean salad, kalamata olives, capers, lentils and feta. Who knew feta worked so well with crustaceans?
“I love good food,” said Bee, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” “but everybody’s raised the bar. We’ve got to keep a price point, but we run a higher food cost than the average restaurant.”
How to make up for it? The answer, at least in part, is alcohol. Anything resembling a milk dispenser or soda fountain at Silk City got the heave-ho in favor of a beer tap and a well-stocked bar. You might not be able to get a milkshake, but you’re not going to miss it when tossing back a two-buck can of PBR.
The search for the comfort food sweet spot isn’t new. In the mid-2000s, Barcelona saw a spate of high-end chefs like Carles Abellan and Carles Gaig opening casual spinoffs with dishes worthy of their creators’ signatures. Young Parisian chefs hopped off the Michelin star train to open gastro bistros like Le Relais du Comptoir and Le Beurre Noisette.
In New York, there’s Torrisi Italian Specialties, which has become the teacher’s pet of local food critics since it opened in late 2009. Torrisi spun off Parm last month, right next to the Mulberry Street original. Parm leans heavily on the comforting style, cuisine and Formica of a diner, from the bar stools to the jazzed-up takes on the club sandwich and, well, the parms (chicken, eggplant and meatball).
Amped-up diner M. Wells became a New York landmark almost as soon as owners Sarah Obratis and her husband and partner Hugue Dufour opened it in July 2010, sporting idea-factory dishes like chicken wonton pot au feu. Unfortunately, a dispute with their landlord earned them the boot from their Long Island City home in late August, but there’s hope. All you need to do to get a sense of their intentions is glance at their website.
“ALL’S WELL AT M. WELLS,” it reads, as always, with the recent addition, “Opening Elsewhere Soon!” There’s little doubt that bar stools and Formica will be de rigueur.
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Whether they have been around for a while, or are new spots simply conjuring an older ethos, a handful of diners across North America are shaking things up, putting smarter, better food on the Formica while keeping prices within reach.
“I started years ago with the idea that a little more love could be put into breakfast,” said Red Wagon owner Brad Miller, “and the belief that less expensive didn’t mean less important.”
He’s not kidding. The pancakes clock in at $12.30 ($12.50 Canadian), and they’re the most expensive item on the all-day menu.
Red Wagon, in the former home of a Vietnamese restaurant whose dilapidated sign still clings to the façade, is a fun, funky spot with an old-school diner feel, replete with a clientele in plaid, tattoos and thick-rimmed glasses, indie radio in the background and an impressive beer list. Its proprietors are quietly serious about what they do, or, as a local chef put it, “They’re sourcing fanatics.”
The restaurant’s crisp pork belly sandwich is a bánh mì in all but name, an enormous wink at the restaurant’s former inhabitants, and an incredible one at that. The baguette-like bread is grilled on the inside, giving it a poofy-crunchy texture, and filled with bits of pickled vegetables that have a vinegary snap. The jewel is the meat — salty, crispy and packed with fatty flavor that makes the sandwich sing.
Across the continent and the border, I met an early adapter. Philadelphia’s Silk City Diner opened in 1958 and moved to the wrong side of the tracks two years later. Its owners were content to sling unremarkable burgers, meatloaf, coffee and pie, as it trundled along before petering out in 2006.
Current owner Mark Bee bought the space and spent close to two years renovating, annexing the seedy brick lounge next door and adding a sprawling beer garden in the empty lot just to the east.
Within the confines of the classic silver panels, the change was significant. Philly had become a food town, and Silk City’s new incarnation had to adapt.
“We stepped up our game because we had to. The typical Greek diner isn’t good. It’s frozen stuff so you can have a platter for five bucks,” said Bee. “There’s a place for it, but it’s nasty.”
Instead, the diner upped its game, going through several chefs — including one who lasted just nine days — before turning the spot into a destination. It kept meatloaf, fried chicken and mac and cheese on its menu, now all gussied up. Hand-cut fries and house-made sauces were added. Even chicken wings got a special treatment: dry-rubbed and baked before their traditional bath in the fryer. Silk City also did an eastern Pennsylvania-centric highbrow-lowbrow fusion, making foie gras scrapple.
On the night I visited, my favorite dish was pan-seared shrimp with a cranberry bean salad, kalamata olives, capers, lentils and feta. Who knew feta worked so well with crustaceans?
“I love good food,” said Bee, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” “but everybody’s raised the bar. We’ve got to keep a price point, but we run a higher food cost than the average restaurant.”
How to make up for it? The answer, at least in part, is alcohol. Anything resembling a milk dispenser or soda fountain at Silk City got the heave-ho in favor of a beer tap and a well-stocked bar. You might not be able to get a milkshake, but you’re not going to miss it when tossing back a two-buck can of PBR.
The search for the comfort food sweet spot isn’t new. In the mid-2000s, Barcelona saw a spate of high-end chefs like Carles Abellan and Carles Gaig opening casual spinoffs with dishes worthy of their creators’ signatures. Young Parisian chefs hopped off the Michelin star train to open gastro bistros like Le Relais du Comptoir and Le Beurre Noisette.
In New York, there’s Torrisi Italian Specialties, which has become the teacher’s pet of local food critics since it opened in late 2009. Torrisi spun off Parm last month, right next to the Mulberry Street original. Parm leans heavily on the comforting style, cuisine and Formica of a diner, from the bar stools to the jazzed-up takes on the club sandwich and, well, the parms (chicken, eggplant and meatball).
Amped-up diner M. Wells became a New York landmark almost as soon as owners Sarah Obratis and her husband and partner Hugue Dufour opened it in July 2010, sporting idea-factory dishes like chicken wonton pot au feu. Unfortunately, a dispute with their landlord earned them the boot from their Long Island City home in late August, but there’s hope. All you need to do to get a sense of their intentions is glance at their website.
“ALL’S WELL AT M. WELLS,” it reads, as always, with the recent addition, “Opening Elsewhere Soon!” There’s little doubt that bar stools and Formica will be de rigueur.
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.
