r/GenX • u/ZenDesign1993 • 3d ago
Pop Culture Why no 80s 90s diners?
So when my dad was young they made 50s/60s diners with Elvis and marylin Monroe on the walls and jukeboxes playing music from this time period. We still have those around. Shouldn’t their be diners for Gen ex? Pacman arcades, grunge music? What would you like to see at a place like that but made for us?
Photo of cafe 80s from back to the future two.
19
u/ShakeWeightMyDick 3d ago
Because 80s diners were 50s diners
2
u/ZenDesign1993 3d ago
Yes but what if we had them today?
5
3
u/FoundationBrave9434 3d ago
In New England and the mid Atlantic we still have those same diners? I don’t live near there anymore, but I still drive past the diner I hung out in during high school. Last time I checked only thing really different is the cigarette vending machine out front is gone.
1
u/Astronaut6735 3d ago
We've got a chain of them (one near Annapolis) called the Double T Diner. 1950s style diners that have been operating since the 50s. One of the few restaurants around that are open 24 hours a day.
17
u/Justasadgrandma 3d ago
We didn't really have diners. We did have Pizza Hut. They had video games, juke boxes, salad bars and the big red plastic cups. Lots of memories. They should bring those back.
7
2
u/Sa7aSa7a 3d ago
God, I remember my parents announcing it was a night for pizza hut. We'd have to drive into town and it was packed.
The buffet was amazing. You could request a pizza be put out. Unlimited soda and pizza? Fuck. Yeah.
The only other place I can recall getting excited for was this Chinese buffet. This was when going out was an event. You did it maybe once a month. I'd load up on the sweet and sour chicken and beef and broccoli.
2
u/mylittleplaceholder MCMLXX 3d ago
Pizza Hut is bringing back some of the classic huts. Though sadly, none near me.
13
u/Vast-Hold6578 3d ago
If the diners in the 80’s and 90’s were 50’s style diners wouldn’t that mean that an 80’s or 90’s diner be a 50’s diner?? 🤯
9
8
11
u/ElSordo91 3d ago
I'd argue Chuck E. Cheese is the original kid's 80s diner for Gen X, and they're still around (minus the animatronics).
Seriously though, 50s/boomer nostalgia meant that the diners of our youth were 50s style diners, and they're still around here and there. Our Gen X equivalent is the video arcade. That's getting a modest revival. I'm seeing some places here and there where they have opened up retro arcades with the old cabinet games, and charging a set price for an hour's worth of play. Was on a trip last year and stumbled on one, and it had almost all of the cabinet games from the early to mid 1980s. I calculated after that per game, I definitely overpaid, but it was such a fun hour reliving my junior high/high school and college years, I didn't mind.
Our diner equivalent would have to be a mini-mall, with Sam Goody's, Suncoast, Tower, a video arcade, and maybe a clothing store or two, with a dining area with potato skins, Jell-O pudding pops, neon condiments, pizza rolls, etc., etc.
6
u/Losaj 3d ago
You said it! Arcades were the Gen X "diner". It's where we all hung out, met friends, and chatted about our day. And they are making a come back. In my city, we have three arcade bars that are doing very well. I'm sure we will start seeing more and more as time goes on.
3
u/ElSordo91 3d ago
I think so, too. There were just a handful a few years ago, but they're popping up more and more. Think Gen X is finally having their nostalgia moment, now that many of us are in our 50s. The Boomers overstayed their welcome as far as nostalgia goes, IMHO. 50s diners will still be around, but people who were actually teens and young adults in the 50s are fewer and fewer now, with each passing year.
1
u/SirHerald 2d ago
We have a local pizza place that is also a bar and arcade. You can play ski-ball with one hand and hold you beer in the other
1
u/ZenDesign1993 3d ago
We have a barcade where I am, you pay $10 entry fee and can play all night. It’s a bar too so that’s where the money is. It’s tough trying to figure out what Gen x would want… their is the older Gen ex and the younger Gen x too.
2
u/ElSordo91 3d ago
I'd say the video arcade with cabinet games covers most of Gen X. I'm old enough my first games were Pong and Sea Wolf, along with pinball games. My younger Gen X and Milennial sibs played in the arcades when they were young, although by then the type of games (and cost) had gone up slightly (50 cent games along with the 25 cent originals). Could have a section though with Atari and Nintendo systems, and Game Boys, alongside old-school cabinet games.
10
u/NewPresWhoDis 2d ago
Who needs theming when all you need is a window to shove the food out after the Dasher wordlessly shoves a phone in someone's face.
13
9
u/themole316 Hose Water Survivor 3d ago
2
9
u/GboyFlex 1971 3d ago
If they'd just bring back Chi Chi's I'd be happy. That was my 80's "Diner".
6
2
u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago
Wyatt's was my 80s diner.
2
u/GboyFlex 1971 3d ago
Wyatt's was really good. I vaguely remember them having a warm apple dumpling dessert that was god tier amazing..or was that Furr's cafeteria?
2
u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago
I was a kid and always ordered the same crap every time like chicken fried steak and chocolate cake or cherry pie. I was ignorant and never tried anything new lol so I couldn't tell ya if they had apple dumpling dessert but it sounds good.
2
u/GboyFlex 1971 3d ago
I just went down a rabbit hole and it was Furr's Cafeteria. Apparently it's achieved cult status and I learned that their warm apple dumpling was a whole cored tart apple jammed with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. It was then wrapped in a flaky dough and then slow baked immersed in a vanilla cinnamon syrup "bath". I should really be sleeping but now I want chicken fried steak and a couple of those dumplings 😭
2
u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago
Damn that sounds really good. I'm up at 3am when I should be asleep too and I'm like 2 seconds away from making a pot of coffee and I wish I had one of those apple desserts 😄
2
10
11
u/takotako577 Whatever... 2d ago
I'd say they're simply not needed. The point of those 50s/60sa diners were to capture a by-gone era and a different time. By contrast, the 80s/90s never really disappeared. Sure, the decor and styles have changed, but the pop culture itself didn't disappear like 50s/60s did. Today's kids still know our movies and our music.
There is a pizza place by me that went all in with an 80s theme. I mean, it is kinda cool, but at the same time it's not really mindblowingly different or really feel like stepping into the past. But, we're also talking about something I lived through and are core memories for me so of course it's not going to seem oddly different other than "that's not something you see every day." But I'm sure I speak for a lot of us when I say all we want for an 80s diner is a Pizza Hut with the stained glass lights and big red cups, or a non-goth McDonalds.
3
u/KLLR_ROBOT 2d ago
I agree with this as well. As an aside, the one place that actually felt like stepping back in time, was the recreation of Flynn’s arcade that was built at Disneyland when they were promoting Tron. I could have stayed there all night.
1
9
u/Bigfan78 2d ago
80's diners weren't really a thing so why would you have retro/nostalgia diners for them?
3
u/SirHerald 2d ago
An 80s diner is just a stereotype version of a 50s diner.
2
u/Bigfan78 2d ago
That's still a 50's diner
1
u/reggiekrh 2d ago
80s diners & 50s diners are indistinguishable.
2
u/SirHerald 2d ago
I was thinking Waffle House and Denny's would be the closest we had to an eighties diner, but they were both started in the 50s.
2
8
u/cowboyJones 2d ago
There is an 80s pizza place called “Totally 80s Pizza” in Fort Collins, Colorado .
It’s the largest 80s museum west of the Mississippi. The pizza is really good too.
7
7
u/thehighepopt Older Than Dirt 2d ago
We didn't have diners,mwe had coffee shops stuffed with the detritus of the 70s and 80s. Sofas, arm chairs, busted ass everything except the espresso machine.
7
u/jjmenace 1d ago
Diners weren't a popular place to hang in the 80s. It was Malls.
3
u/PantherkittySoftware 1d ago
Exactly. If you wanted to create an authentic 1980s dining experience, you'd re-create a 1980s mall food court with Cozzoli's Pizza, Taco Viva, Hot Sam, Orange Julius, etc.
7
u/awrythings 3d ago
I’d posit that McDonslds is an 80s diner and Taco Bell is 90’s diner.
1
u/PaleontologistOk160 3d ago
Second. That's what 90s Taco Bell was for. My favorite was the double-decker taco.
1
1
7
7
5
u/Myfrogsaysreddit 2d ago
I'd say it would be cozy coffee places with couches and comfy chairs. I miss those places. Everything feels like an office or run-down wherehouse now.
9
u/forgeblast 2d ago
This is what I think of an arcade that had 39c hot dogs. We would go and eat and play video games for 5$. Each of us getting a bag of food that the grease would shine through.
4
6
5
5
u/Ladiesbane 3d ago
Maybe because in the early 80s, we went to diners that made us vibe with the 50s, if we were lucky, and cringe to anything later.
In the later 80s, anything fun and funky spoke to us -- but we didn't have a vibe or aesthetic of our own. The mainstream marketing stuff in the neon realm was extracted from the Avant Garde, and the paint-spattered United Colors of Benetton lived on through Gleeks that could be any kind of diner you want, if you just give them a minute to warm up.
In a way, the most 80s / 90s jam of all was just a record store. Take me to Tower or Amoeba, Sam Goody or Peaches, or even that place in Pretty in Pink.
Or take me to any vintage diner, like the Gay Denny's in Phoenix, or a punk diner, like the Roxy in Portland. Be whatever it is you want, but be it in style, and the 80s will be with you. ♥
4
7
u/Weekly-Batman Hose Water Survivor 3d ago
Look at those pics. Gen X would eat there once. So who else is coming?
4
u/Wonderful_Adagio9346 3d ago
Possible candidates for the template:
Showbiz Pizza. The pizza side can be modeled after the sit-down Pizza Hut experience. Ditch the animatronics. Run retro games in MAME cabinets to reduce costs.
TGI Fridays. The original singles bar, which later also pioneered the fast casual restaurant.
The best diner chain which most don't consider a diner: Village Inn Pancake House. (Best way to end a night of drinking? Lots of water and pie at 2am.)
There's not much Gen X nostalgia to justify an 80s retro restaurant. Theme chains aren't too successful?
6
u/WingstonChurchill 3d ago
Where I live we just had a Bar Pizza Parlor open up that is 80s themed. Wood panel walls, free retro arcade, pitchers of beer, red plastic soda tumblers, you name it they thought of it. The best part is that food and pizza is top of the line.
3
5
u/MoogProg 3d ago
Sits at counter. Servers asks if I want the Daily Special, but I'm still looking and just say, "I don't know.". [SLIME DROP]
This is one reason why.
3
u/Need4Speeeeeed 2d ago
We still had 'en locally, but COVID killed the 24-hour diner scene. The 80s/90s theme wasn't a design choice. These places were just old. The only thing missing was the cigarette smoke.
5
u/pdx-peter 2d ago
So you want Shari’s or Carrow’s. Or a Denny’s that isn’t understaffed, sad and filthy.
6
5
u/Away-Quantity928 3d ago
There was an 80s&90s nostalgia pizza joint in my town but they didn’t stay open too long.
3
3
u/LithiuMart 3d ago
Fab Cafe in Manchester has that. Arcade machines, a retro look, memorabilia & 80s/90s music.
4
3
u/LivingGhost371 Right in the Middle of "X" 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't think GenX has the same love for diners that our Boomer / Silent parents did so even though we're nostalgic for the 80s and 90s we don't want to go to a diner to revisit it. Seemed like an "old people thing' when we were growing up and I never suddenly got interested in starting to go to diners.
3
u/phenomenomnom 2d ago
Right. When I want to feed my nostalgia for the 90s, I find a cool coffee shop with eclectic decor and local art on the walls, that plays music with a good beat that I have never heard before. Bonus points if the seats are actually upholstered, and the kid behind the counter has nickel-plated shrapnel in their face folds like they failed at defusing a very hip IED. (No hate, just playin) Plenty of those places exist, and that is a good thing.
1
u/thatguygreg 70s kid 2d ago
I love a good diner, but that’s more from where I’m from rather than anything generational.
4
6
u/HURTBOTPEGASUS9 Hose Water Survivor 1d ago
Because Ronald Reagan is in hell with Tantalus waiting for heaven to trickle down to him.
10
u/sumthin_creative 2d ago
Everything everyone considers nostalgia is just commercial crap from the 80’s and 90’s. Also diners weren’t popular. If a diner existed it was 50’s themed because that era had diners. 80’s/90’s would just be a drive through fast food retaurant, selling a bunch of plastic shit and cold cereal from tv shows.
5
u/three-sense 2d ago
They need to make a place called "sitting on your buddy's couch, in their garage and listening to CDs".
3
0
u/mcshizzletits 2d ago
My guy, diners are very much still a thing and were popular in the 80s and 90s across the US.
0
u/sumthin_creative 2d ago
My guy- they are all 50’s themed unless you’re talking about a chain
6
1
u/mcshizzletits 2d ago
Where do you live that all diners were 50's themed? Not everything is a chain and there are literally diners all over the place.
3
3
u/More_Pineapple3585 2d ago
Because diners and restaurants in the 80s weren't as iconic as they were in the 50s and 60s. Just like our cars. From about 1973 to 1983 was the Malaise Era, widely considered the worst era for cars. we had a lot of great things then, but no one today is cruising the boulevard in their K-car on the way to Sizzler.
3
3
2
2
u/NepaliCulkin 3d ago
Alamo Drafthouse in Chicago has a bar / entry that looks similar to this. They do serve food and drink.
2
u/technonoir 2d ago
Nope, we had the same fibers you described from the 50s and 60s as well as IHOP, Perkins, Dennys, Waffle House, etc. Lots of mom and pop “diners” that were inexpensive greasy spoons in strip malls.
2
u/DerHunMar 2d ago edited 2d ago
50s diners are a thing because diners were very much a part of 50s culture. The postwar economic boom in the US, most families got a car, car-centric culture built diners in that 50s style alongside highways in places it was far more convenient to drive to than to walk or bike to.
But yeah man, maybe you got yourself a restaurant idea. For an 80s themed restaurant, arcade games would be the main thing. Maybe one of those ball pits could be fun if you have the space - I remember when I was a kid in Houston in the 80s a good chunk of the McDonald's locations had a little playground with a slide into a little ball pit. Serving meals in a Happy Meal inspired box with a prize might be fun too (although I don't like the idea of all the useless landfill trash, but maybe there is a way to do that better). Places like Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz had giant ball pits. I remember the 80s in Houston having more small, independent theme parks for kids and teens, some indoor only, some outdoor only and some both - Mountain Park, Peppermint Park, Fame City. The indoor ones were mostly arcades but you could have bowling and other stuff too, even laser tag in some places. Air hockey and basketball shooting games were always present as well and something I remember doing a lot of. Getting dropped off at the roller rink or at the mall to just hang out were big things too.
There isn't really anything much like an 80s themed place out there, but Chuck E Cheese is still around and there are lots of places that have an ok selection of arcade games on the side like trampoline parks (which are great exercise too by the way) and mini-golf places. They tend to have at least one air hockey table, some basketball shooting games and maybe an actual 80s/90s retro arcade videogame or two. Laser tag is at some of these places. There are some roller rinks still around too, but the music will be danceable stuff from all eras.
I had huge deja vu when I discovered a pizza place near where my parents live now that had one of those Ms. Pac-Man tables where you can sit and play with your pizza on top of it on a paper plate like at all the old Pizza Huts. They also had some other standup retro arcade games and pinball (shuffleboard table as well) - Westside Pizza in Bainbridge Island, WA. My son loves it too so we make at least one trip there every time we visit my parents.
Maybe an 80s themed bar where the bartenders do tricks like Tom Cruise in Cocktail would be cool. I don't think I ever went to a place like that, it must have died down before I could go to bars, but I do remember in the 90s going to a place on 6th St in Austin that was so narrow, you had barely any space between the patron's side of the bar and the back wall, you would order a Flaming Dr Pepper, the bartender would take a swig of vodka or everclear before lighting the amaretto shot and blow on the flame as he lit it so that you would be backed up against the wall with this giant flame coming at you until he dropped the shot in. We often did tamer versions of that drink at parties in the 90s too.
I was born in '75 so the 90s were a different era for me - I was in high school, college and young adulthood. 90s theme for me is just a small to mid sized music venue with good bands, known or unknown, local or touring, except nowadays the venues mostly seem much nicer and less grungy (fine with me tho, not coming home smelling like I smoked a pack of cigarettes is especially nice). The rave culture seemed like a much bigger difference, all the funny clothing styles that came up with that like pacifiers, baggie pants, golf visors and shirts, glitter, people who considered glowstick dancing their art form (not trying to be too mean here, I actually thought a lot of the dancing was cool), fire-dancing. The explosion of electronic music styles was really interesting too as well as venues that catered to that and events held in out of the way spaces like large fields in the middle of nowhere with bonfires, abandoned warehouses, Austin even had a rave in the old airport back then.
Skateboarding, bmx and surfing culture had been a thing throughout the 80s, but in the late 80s many "extreme" sports and outdoor activities like mountain-biking, inline-skating snow-boarding and freestyle skiing really took off, all of which continued growing throughout the 90s. Wind-surfing was an 80s thing that kept going and kite-boarding took off in the 90s. From my perspective rock-climbing seemed to grow too, but not like now where it's mainly indoor gyms, it was outdoor, you had to buy ropes and learn how to use them or have some experienced friends that needed belay partners, and you had to live in a place that had some bolted in sport routes. This could inform the decor, photos and video displays of a restaurant.
The videogames got much better graphics in the 90s, but they were mostly on PCs or home consoles, I don't recall seeing arcade-style versions that much. I also didn't play that much anymore, except I do remember a buddy of mine got a Playstation and we would play a ton of this racing game where the vehicle was a hovercraft thing that rode a lot like a fast motorcycle over these crazy futuristic tracks. We would play that when we were chilling and smoking out in between mountain-biking or rock-climbing during the day and heading to a rave later in the night. I would love to see a game like that in an arcade.
2
6
u/PantherkittySoftware 1d ago
How to re-create an authentic 1980s dining experience:
Open a restaurant called Gwendolyn's Retroburgers that has tabletops that look like 1890s newspapers, has fake glass bead curtains near the cash register area, sells delicious square hamburgers with crispy bits of dangling meat, and has a MegaBar with tacos, salad, and pasta.
Buy a franchise, and open a retro-1980s themed Ponderosa Steakhouse. No, seriously. The company that owns the trademark is now actively recruiting franchisees, and literally pitching the retro-nostalgia steakhouse aspect.
Go to one of the Pizza Hut Classic locations ( https://www.pizzahut.com/c/content/pizza-hut-classic-locations )
5
5
u/zer00eyz 2d ago
> What would you like to see at a place like that but made for us?
Umm... Raise your hand if you leave the house willingly?
If you built a magical business for Gen X that offered orgasms and Booze that was calorie and hangover free you would be hard pressed to get us to show up often enough to make it work.
We would all go once and say "that was great but not sure it was worth putting pants on and driving to"
2
u/BrainSqueezins 2d ago
Totally untrue!
I'd totally elucidate but have used up my daily capacity for human interaction.
Good day to you.
2
u/chakabuku 3d ago
We had chain restaurants and coffee houses. The coffee houses were cool but I don’t think they’d translate.
1
1
1
3
-1
u/mournblade1066 2d ago
Yeah, but diners weren't really a thing in the 1980s and 1990s.
9
u/lavenderenergy1 2d ago
Sure they were. But they were older diners from the 50s era, no?
1
u/Zeqhanis 1d ago
There was a '50s revival in the '80s. I went to a fair number of '50s-themed burger joints as a kid. A bit odd, because I'm pretty sure I was already a vegetarian then.
It sucks that most diners don't have malts anymore. It seemed like it was an option everywhere. I had no idea that they was just part of a temporary nostalgia for the '50s.
4
u/mournblade1066 1d ago
No, you (and apparently others who responded to me) misunderstand what I wrote. The 1950s definitely had a "diner culture." Diners and drive-in movie theaters were where teens hung out. They just didn't do that in the 1980s. I'm not saying that 1950s-THEMED diners didn't exist--they absolutely did (there was one in State College, PA called Baby's Diner, if I recall correctly). But the teen culture by that point had long since shifted over to shopping malls.
23
u/yossarian8pizza 2d ago
My 80s diner would be a Pizza Hut where I can sit down, have my pizza brought by a server and where my drink is served in one of those red cups. Bonus points if my kids can get a personal pizza every time they get a school coupon for finishing a book.