The Mayfair.

The Mayfair is arguably our favorite diner, not so much for the food (although that butter cake is, as they say, "to die for") but for the fact that they've preserved so well the original structure.

Most diners have been, for lack of a better word, bastardized over time. New owners tend to cover the outside with a facade, add on a second structure for seating, move the cooking out of sight, and change the signage or the stools or the countertop. At one time, because added-on sections often had more seats than the original stool-and-booth sections and there were fewer smokers than non-smokers, the smokers got to sit in the original section and we non-smokers got shunted into what I call the dinette room. Now that smoking is prohibited in all areas of restaurants in Pennsylvania we always try to sit in the old original part, even if we end up on stools.

The Mayfair is, in a word, beautiful. I thought I had and certainly wish I had better pictures, of the "Take Out" and the "Rest Rooms" signs, of the chromium napkin holders and stainless steel stools, and of all the fluted tin behind the counter. They all go so harmoniously with the pink-uniforms, beehive hairdos, and studied gum-chewing of waitresses who look and act as if they've been slinging hash there since they trucked the 1954 O'Mahoney to the site 57 years ago.

February, 2007:

This last photo, of the Mayfair at night, was taken by Ron Saari, who, as you can see from his web site, has an excellent collection of diner pictures. His versions of both the Melrose and the Mayfair are among my favorites.