The diners are dying

The Malibu - Hoboken

The New York Times ran an article a while back about the vanishing New York diner.  Here are my notes on the subject:

The Malibu Diner somehow manages to combine the stylistic elements of funeral parlour and penny arcade. I asked the waiter if they had Wi-Fi yet and he gave me a blank look before answering: "We don't do Chinese food".

The pastries and muffins on the counter are clingfilmed inside plastic cases that look like the fake flower domes you see on Irish graves. -- The bereavement is sealed in.

And then there's the Westway Diner on 9th Avenue

 

Twenty years ago, the city was full of places like this, but the waning popularity of the heart attack put a lot of them out of business. Back then, you could tell how popular a place was by the number of ambulances parked outside.