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Onion rings. Thanks to some genius, most places now serve those awful, bloated, pillow-like "beer-battered" onion rings. Everywhere from Applebee's to Tipsy McStagger's Olde Time Drinking Emporium serves them straight from the Sysco catalog. 

So, when you actually find some hand-made rings cut with ample slices of onions, you've found a true delight, and you will find them at My Brothers' Place in Webster, Massachusetts. Indeed, I've gone a long time since I've had good rings like these. The last time I remember having anything like these, they came from Relish, the diner/restaurant in Brooklyn's hip Williamsburg section. Crispy, lightly battered, and tasting like something much more pleasant than the Fryolater from which they came, those rings — and those I just had from My Brothers' Place — reminded me what a delicacy true, properly made onion rings represented. 

I have it on very good authority that renovations will soon begin on the Melrose Diner in Philadelphia. While I have largely "forgiven" Michael Petrogiannis for some of his renovation transgressions on the other diners he owns in the city, I can't help but look at the exterior of the Melrose and ask, "What could possibly need any improvement?"

I still think that most of the exterior renovations done to the Mayfair were not needed, but they can easily be reversed. We'll see what happens to the other Philly diner landmark over the next few weeks. 

If you don't have photographs of the diner in its current state, you better hurry. Tell them Roadside sent you! 

The bad economy and some poor accounting claim a once-great Rhode Island institution.

State shuts down Jigger's Diner for back taxes

By Barbara Polichetti, Journal Staff Writer

EAST GREENWICH –– Jigger's Diner, the popular local eatery where jonnycakes and homemade pies were dished up daily, was closed last week by the state Division of Taxation for being delinquent in remitting state taxes, according to local officials.

Town Manager William Sequino Jr. and Police Chief Tomas E. Coyle said that a tax official went to Jigger's last Tuesday and advised employees and customers that the restaurant needed to close its doors because it was in arrears on its state taxes. Coyle said that people were allowed to finish their meals and that the situation was handled courteously with no disturbances.

Read more about this here. 

We had some discussion of late about the idea of creating the opposite of the Lou-Roc Award, given to an owner who brings a diner back from destruction or desecration. If we stayed true-to-form, we'd name it after a diner that exemplifies this degree of preservation, and to me, the most obvious choice would be Lamy's Diner, now located at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Unfortunately — and with apologies to Mr. Lamy — I'm not crazy about the name's other connotations.

Dan Rundell describes the task of renovating a 1920s vintage diner.

However, if I did create such an award, Dan Rundell might get the first one. In 1990, he purchased the Durham Diner located in Durham, Connecticut after a small fire had closed it for good after about seventy years of service. Having only just started Roadside a few months before, I managed to catch one hazy glimpse of this diner, early one evening as the sun hovered over the horizon. I couldn't see much through the streaky windows, but I remember the enamel-coated stool bases I hadn't seen before or since. Soon after, Dan Rundell carted the diner away and sequestered it from the world in his barn and workshop, beginning a slow and steady restoration.