I Visited 2 New Jersey Diners to See Why American Diners Are Dying

Located just a 45-minute drive outside Manhattan, Tops is in a prime location to get traffic from New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. It serves nearly 13,000 people a week.

Tops is a far cry from the diners of my youth. Four hundred people can squeeze into these tan booths. Dozens of workers buzz around the floor. And music blasts overhead.

For the middle of the week, I thought it’d be quieter. Boy, was I wrong. Behind the scenes, the kitchen was firing food nonstop. Cooks go through 21,600 eggs a week. Stephen McCormick, the Executive Chef of Tops, told me people order pasta with Alfredo sauce at 8 in the morning, and stacks of pancakes late at night.

I tried a lot of dishes. The big serving of fried chicken and waffles ($26) had a nice crisp to it. The waffles were big and fluffy.

This is a New Jersey classic: a pile of fries smothered in gravy and topped with melty mozzarella. The gravy was rich, the cheese deliciously springy, and the fries somehow held their crunch. This is such an indulgent dish. I can see why Disco Fries are a favorite late-night eat in the state.

To make the gravy for the Disco Fries, the restaurant roasts vegetables and bones for 24 hours. Cooks hand roll those Philly Cheesesteak eggrolls. They smash avocados through a cooling rack for guacamole.

The restaurant serves meat from Pat LaFrieda, the same supplier of burgers to Shake Shack and prime cuts to Brooklyn’s oldest steakhouse, Peter Luger. In addition to Pat LaFrieda, Tops’ Executive Chef Stephen slices many of the cuts himself.

Here, a team of bakers pumps out pancake batter, expertly fills cheesecake molds, and swiftly decorates Tres Leches cakes. I was floored to learn they were even making their own syrup for pancakes.

Golemis says diners are becoming extinct because owners face long working hours. It’s a tough business to be in, and diner bosses burn out. He credits volume and constant innovation for Tops’ success. Recently, in 2020, Golemis and his brothers renovated the restaurant, adding more seats and parking, ultimately tripling the space.

After my meal at Tops, I left wondering if this place can still be considered a diner. It’s more expensive and expansive than any I’d ever seen. But that scale has allowed Golemis to experiment with new flavors and bring in a lot of hungry eaters. Is this the diner of the future?

I went on another Wednesday morning, and just like Tops, Summit Diner was buzzing. Located in Summit, New Jersey, the diner opened in 1928. It’s one of the oldest left in the state and one of the last remaining examples of a pre-fabricated diner manufactured by the Jerry O’Mahony Diner Company.

Diners can trace their roots back to Rhode Island in the 1870s. First, they were horse-drawn lunch wagons serving sandwiches to newspaper workers on the night shift.

But it was New Jersey’s factories that built most of the pre-fabricated diners shipped across the US in the 20th century.

It’s estimated that the Jerry O’Mahony Company built 2,000 diners by the time it shuttered in the 1950s.

Owner Jimmy Greberis’ family bought Summit Diner in 1964 after immigrating from Greece. Greberis started working here when he was 19. Over the last 40 years, he’s seen the clientele shift from Wall Street bigwigs to everyday construction workers.

The tiled floor, mahogany walls, neon red stools and booths, and tables are all from 1939. Greberis said these original touches are expensive to maintain and hard to replace because the company that built this diner went out of business in the 1950s.

I spoke with Summit employee Maelin Mejis, who said that when she was first hired, the waitresses were practically singing. She’d memorize the orders and holler to the cooks: “Two eggs over easy. One corned beef hash!” Now, she dances around the restaurant, writing down orders with a pen and paper and figuring out tabs with a calculator. No credit cards are in sight.

This was the first time I’d ever tried a Taylor Ham roll. I was blown away. Somehow, the sandwich tasted nostalgic to me. Salty pork paired perfectly with melty American cheese and a Natale’s soft roll, baked up the road.

Dare I say the pancakes were better than Tops’? They’re fluffy, with a nice crust on the outside. Smothered in syrup, they feel like a warm hug.

He’s tried experimenting with fruit, but people don’t order it. And avocado? He said he won’t serve it because it goes bad quickly, and his team doesn’t know how to work with it. After 40 years in the business, Greberis says he knows what works best, and he sticks to the classics.

It’s clear how much Summit means to the town, and how much Greberis has put back into the community. He gets bread from Natale’s, a local bakery. That giant log of Taylor Ham comes from an hour up the road.

Labor’s gotten more expensive, and food costs have soared. Eggs surged from $1.20 a dozen before COVID to $8.60. They’ve since leveled out to $3.75. Small diners like this just don’t have the volume to be able to absorb those costs. Greberis had to raise his prices, but at $9.25 an omelet, nearly half the price of Tops’, his prices still seem more than fair.

Despite surviving all these challenges, a more humble threat might spell the end of Summit. Greberis’ kids don’t want to take over the family restaurant. He worries about selling the business to another family because he said the land is worth more than the business, and they might tear it down. I wondered, could it even be Summit Diner without Jimmy?

The pancakes and Taylor Ham were amazing. But more than the food, this place is a vibe. It’s comforting. You feel like you’ve known the staff for years, even if you just walked through the doors. It’s as if the whole town squeezes into just a few booths. The mayor just happened to be eating lunch the day we visited!

While Summit and Tops have taken two very different approaches to an American diner, I think they represent a path forward for the waning category.

Tops has innovated, firing up bold flavors and slinging out liquor, much to its customers’ delight. Whereas Summit stuck with tradition, and that’s worked because the town revels in its history.

If there’s going to be a future for diners, there has to be room for both kinds. But the real reason I think diners are forever isn’t the food; it’s the people—the owners, cooks, and waitresses who keep the energy humming and the hungry diners who keep coming back for more.