Walked into a diner in Pittsburgh last week and nobody was prepping from scratch

I stopped at this old place near the strip district that used to have a real line cook doing omelets to order. Now it's all pre-made stuff from a Sysco box. Eggs are from a carton, bacon is precooked, even the hash browns came frozen. I asked the kid on the flat top about it and he said it's been that way since before he started. The owner told me labor cost is too high to have someone chopping onions and potatoes every morning. I get it, margins are tight, but it feels like the soul of short order cooking is dying. Has anyone else noticed more places switching to this model or is it just the smaller spots?

3 comments

3 Comments

terry_thomas20d ago

Honestly, I gotta push back a little on the "soul is dying" thing. I grew up in Pittsburgh and ate at those old diners, and yeah, they were great, but most of them were already using frozen hash browns and carton eggs back in the 90s. The real change I've noticed is how few people actually want to pay what scratch cooking costs. A good omelet from a real line cook runs like $14 now, and customers lose their minds over a $10 plate of Sysco stuff.

milaprice20d ago

See this is where I gotta draw the line on the frozen hash browns. I'm from Jersey and those old diners were peeling potatoes fresh every morning until maybe 2010. You can taste the difference when they're real. But you're dead on about the price problem. People will happily drop $18 on a craft burger with fancy toppings but a $14 omelet makes them feel like they're being robbed. That's the real soul killer right there, customers wanting diner quality for gas station prices.

susana6620d ago

Funny you mention that, my uncle ran a diner and swore the freezer stuff was better for business.