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Custom Furniture Home Furnishings Interior Design
15 Monument Street Concord, MA
(978)-369-2000
Tues-Sat 10am -5pm
www.thecottage.com
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS
vehicle with a “kitchen-apartment” at one
end separated from a “dining-room space”
with stools or chairs at the other and windows for walk-up customers. Inside, these
wagons could hold 20 people standing.
The model held for another 25 years, with
higher-end versions sporting etched glass,
beveled plate-glass mirrors, exuberant
paint jobs, and elaborate tiled surfaces.
Their popularity proved to be their
downfall. Gutman reports that by 1912,
nearly 50 of them were plying the streets
of Providence, and they’d spread to other
New England cities as well. Authorities
grumbled about the late-night crowds, the
peeling-paint condition of the aging fleet,
and the competition the wagons were giving established restaurants by staying open
until morning, when they also added to
street congestion. It wasn’t long until street
bans forced wagon drivers to scramble for
small lots to permanently plunk their once-mobile businesses.
Coincident with this change, many
Northern cities began replacing their
horse-drawn trolleys with electric ones,
leaving some enterprising souls to snatch
up the discards, throw in a coffee urn and
a griddle, and sell them as a step up to the
guys in the newly marooned lunch wagons.
These retreads weren’t exactly glorious
spaces, and it wasn’t long until manufac-
turers started to offer fresh, shiny, attractive
“lunch cars,” replete with skylights, var-
nished wood, porcelain stools, shiny metal
surfaces, and, crucially, the modern length-
wise counter, with seating on one side and
cooking in the “back bar.”
Sometime around 1923, the manu-
facturers’ catalogs began referring to their
products as “diners,” perhaps because
these were now three-meal establish-
ments. Driven by demand, they got bigger
To experience a nearly
unchanged diner from the
1920s, head to Casey’s in
Natick, Massachusetts,
famous for its natural-casing
hot dogs, the kind that snap
when you bite down.
Green Since 1970 folk art & creative furniture since 1970
2454 Meetinghouse Way (Route 149), West Barnstable, MA
508-362-2676 • Open 7 days 9–4 • www.westbarnstabletables.com
4
Tiger Maple Trestle Table with Cherry Base
shown with Contemporary Cherry/Maple Windsor Chairs
