Vintage photos show what it was like to eat at a diner in the 1950s

Railcar-style diners were modeled after dining cars or sometimes converted from the original train cars into stand-alone eateries, The Telegraph reported.

Diners, which were relatively affordable to purchase at just $1,000, were constructed in factories and then shipped to their destinations, much like mobile homes. Since they had to be transported using a truck or railcar, they were purposefully designed to be narrow, the Telegraph reported.

Once they arrived, the utilities simply had to be connected. 

Curbed reported that nearly 95% of the shippable restaurants were once manufactured in New Jersey because of the state's high working population and proximity to major highways. 

The Summit Diner in New Jersey, one of the oldest diners in the country, opened in 1928, was rebuilt in 1939, and is still open today.

However, after World War II ended and the suburbs began to boom, more people began opening diners nationwide.

Since the restaurants themselves were so small, and the kitchens so narrow, not many employees were required, which kept costs down and profits up, Curbed reported.

Travelers along the new highways could stop off and grab a quick bite at the roadside establishments.

Diners typically operate around the clock, allowing patrons to stop by at any time for a meal.

Most diners had galley kitchens that made it easier for cooks to move from one dish to another, making service quicker than in a traditional restaurant, the Telegraph reported.

Items like pancakes, sausages, meatloaf, burgers, and sandwiches were standard on diner menus, and still are today. 

The meals were priced low, making diners popular even before their rise in the 1950s. During the Great Depression, diners provided an inexpensive way for families to go out to eat, the Telegraph reported.

Edward Hopper's 1942 painting "Nighthawks" shows a diner and its few occupants late at night. The painting is based on a diner in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Young couples could stop into a diner for a couple of burgers, hang around the jukebox, and meet up with friends in a casual, public setting.

"In the movies, the diner is a special kind of space, a mythic place, a zone of escape," film critic John Patterson told the BBC in a 2011 interview.

Suzanne Vega, who wrote the '80s hit song "Tom's Diner," added, "The attraction of the diner is that it's a sort of a midway point between the street and home."

Michael C. Gabriele, who wrote "The History of Diners in New Jersey," told the Telegraph that "diners are the state's ultimate gathering places — at any moment, high school students, CEOs, construction workers, and tourists might be found at a counter chatting with the waitresses and line cooks."

During the Civil Rights Movement, NPR reported, diners became a popular place for activists to hold "sit-ins" in restaurants that refused to seat Black people, despite many of them employing Black people to work there.

In 1964, Congress outlawed segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels through the Civil Rights Act, but many diners in the South continued to segregate their establishments, afraid that seating Black people "would drive away white patrons," NPR reported.

Curbed reported in 2017 that new diners can cost more than $1 million to produce, and restoring or renovating old ones can be extremely pricey as well. Many '50s-style diners in operation are built on-site to cut shipping costs.

As McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King restaurants continued to pop up nationwide, it became difficult for small business owners to compete with the huge corporations also selling cheap, convenient food.

In 2022, Time Out reported that two notable New York diners, Good Stuff Diner in Chelsea and Meme's Diner in Crown Heights, had closed their doors in the previous two years. The New York Times also reported that between 2014 and 2019, 15 diners were sold across four of New York City's five boroughs: six sales in Queens, six in Brooklyn, two in the Bronx, and one in Staten Island.

However, a recent embracing of nostalgia — such as the increased popularity of speakeasies, as reported by USA Today — has also revitalized the typical American diner.

A recent addition to New York's SoHo neighborhood is the trendy '50s-style Soho Diner, part of the Soho Grand Hotel. Other New York diners, like the Waverly Diner and the Empire Diner, have managed to keep their doors open despite changing tastes.