Diners of Pennsylvania - Media Information
 
Click below for press releases about this book. To access the hi-res pictures:
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Please credit the book Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick.
For more information, contact Stackpole Books at (800) 732-3669 or sales@stackpolebooks.com

PRESS RELEASE #1
300 Words
PRESS RELEASE #2
800 Words
PRESS RELEASE #3
10 facts about diners in PA

Book cover of
Diners of Pennsylvania
by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick.
Zinn's Diner served Pennsylvania Dutch food til 2003, when it was sold and changed names. The 1949 Paramount has been remodeled several times. This Amos served from 1960-69.
The Summit Diner in Somerset is a pristine example of the change from 1950s Exagerated Modern look to the Environmental style of the 1960s. The 1960 Swingle draws customers from the nearby Turnpike exit.
The Park Dinor in the Lawrence Park section of Erie has long used the "dinor" spelling particular to northwest Pennsylvania. The small diner was made by Silk City in 1948 and is now in the National Register.
This 1948 Paramount-brand diner on Main Street in Stroudsburg was originally named the Colonial Diner. It was transformed into a bar and then recently demolished.
Diners are increasingly remodeled in a postmodern style that combines elements from many previous eras. The 5th Street Diner in Temple, north of Reading, is a late-1950s Silk City that has been completely redone.
 Feel free to use these images, but please credit the book
Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick.


PRESS RELEASE #1 - 300 words
 
DINERS ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA EXPLORED IN BOOK
 
A diner is one of the few places that appeals to a wide range of ages. Kids, teens, baby boomers, and senior citizens all love the good food and fair prices that so many diners provide.
 
But the love of diners goes beyond that - these popular restaurants offer a sense of community and the promise of home-cooking all in a familiar-looking building. The story of those buildings and the industry that continues to create them is the focus of Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick.
 
"Pennsylvania is great for studying diners," says Butko. "It probably has a wider cross-section of diners than any other state." From 80-year-old diners with barrel-shaped roofs to today's glass block and chrome giants, diners of all styles have found their way to the Keystone state.
 
Butko says most people think diners are just train cars turned into restaurants. "But there is a rich history to diners, which for more than a century have been built in factories specifically as restaurants."
 
Diner fans plan trips to visit the various styles of diners, much like auto enthusiasts attend calssic car shows. To help, Diners of Pennsylvania includes "diner drives" which offer the best routes to see diners along with a history lesson about why each corridor attracted so many diners.
 
The book also includes extended profiles of 25 diners, and listings of 260 diners with adresses, hours, and specialties. Diners do change owners - and even locations - constantly, assuring that no two "diner trips" will be the same.
 
Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick, published by Stackpole Books, is available at all bookstores and online booksellers.
 
Visit http://www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's other books, all published by Stackpole, plus his forthcoming projects.
 
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PRESS RELEASE #2 - 800 words
 
DINER STYLES ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA EXPLORED IN BOOK
 
A diner is one of the few places that appeals to a wide range of ages. Kids, teens, baby boomers, and senior citizens all love the good food and fair prices that so many diners provide.
 
But the love of diners goes beyond that - these popular restaurants offer a sense of community and the promise of home-cooking all in a familiar-looking building. The story of those buildings and the industry that continues to create them is the focus of Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick.
 
"Pennsylvania is great for studying diners," says Butko. "It probably has a wider cross-section of diners than any other state." From 80-year-old diners with barrel-shaped roofs to today's glass block and chrome giants, diners of all styles have found their way to the Keystone state.
 
Pennsylvania also offers a wide range of foodways, from scrapple and shoofly pie in the east to haluski and pierogies around Scranton and Pittsburgh.
 
Butko says most people think diners are just train cars turned into restaurants. "People also increasingly think of diners only as places with chrome decor and '50s music. But there is a rich history to diners, which for more than a century have been built in factories specifically as restaurants."
 
Diners trace their roots back to the late 1800s, when lunch carts appeared in New England to serve overnight industrial workers. Kevin Patrick says that as industry spread south, so did the manufacturers: "By the 1920s, New Jersey and downstate New York had six producers compared to Massachusett's four. Pennsylvania's coal and steel towns were ripe markets for their output."
 
A few diners from that era can still be found, such as Pip's on Pittsburgh West End, a 1920s Teirney-brand diner that still serves breakfast and lunch. More common are diners made by O'Mahony. The facade of Trolley Car Café in Lewistown blends into the streetscape but the name and a peek around back reveal both a 1926 and 1940 O'Mahony diner.
 
O'Mahony remained a prolific builder until 1956. Its most famous product is the very long Mayfair Diner on Frankford Ave. in northeast Philadelphia.
 
Many mid-century diners were made by Silk City; two examples are the West Shore Diner in Lemoyne near Harrisburg and the Park Dinor in Erie.
 
The use of "dinor" is particular to northwest Pennsylvania. "The 'dinor' spelling once dominated restaurants in the region," says Butko. "It can still be found on a number of diners, but no one is sure of its origin."
 
Most of the diners remaining in Pennsylvania were made after WWII. Among the most common makes are Fodero, Mountain View, DeRaffele, Kullman, and Paramount. Descendants of the last three still produce diners in styles ranging from retro to postmodern.
 
One of the first to adopt a retro style was The Dining Car in Phildelphia, built in 1981 but with the look and feel of a 1930s diner. Patrick explains, "The postmodern look usually includes stainless steel, chrome, glass block, checkered tiles, and neon - all common diner elements but rarely used together in original diners. Today's heavy use of such imagery tells potential customers that 'here's a diner but its new and will have modern menu items.'"
 
Remodellings to postmodern styles are increasingly common. The New City View Diner north of Allentown, the Yankee Doodle Diner in the Poconos, and the 5th Street Diner north of Reading are just a few examples of how a mix of classic materials can give a new look to an old diner.
 
Because diners are built as mobile restaurants, they are increasingly moved instead of being bulldozed. Having so many diners, Pennsylvania has become a "diner export state." Pristine examples are regularly bought and removed by out-of-state restaurateurs who desire a classic diner. A recent loss was the Ingleside Diner, which had been on the Lincoln Highway in Thorndale since 1956.
 
Better news for Pennsylvanians was the recent move of Morgan's Eastland Diner. The 1957 Mountain View-brand diner had moved from Irwin to Butler in 1976 and had to move again in 2003. It was trucked that Fall to Presque Isle in Erie to serve locals and vacationers to the recreational peninsula.
 
Diner fans plan trips to visit the various styles of diners, much like auto enthusiasts attend calssic car shows. To help, Diners of Pennsylvania includes "diner drives" which offer the best routes to see diners along with a history lesson about why each corridor attracted so many diners.
 
The book also includes extended profiles of 25 diners, and listings of 260 diners with adresses, hours, and specialties. Diners do change owners - and even locations - constantly, assuring that no two "diner trips" will be the same.
 
Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick, published by Stackpole Books, is available at all bookstores and online booksellers.
 
Visit http://www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's other books, all published by Stackpole, plus his forthcoming projects.
 
###

PRESS RELEASE #3
 
10 FACTS ABOUT DINERS IN PENNSYLVANIA
 
From Diners of Pennsylvania by Brian Butko and Kevin Patrick, published by Stackpole Books.
 
1) A diner is a factory-built restaurant transported to its site of operation. Those from the 1920s-'40s resemble railroad cars because they were often transported by train.
 
2) Of the thousands of diners that once exisited in Pennsylvania, only about 260 remain.
 
3) One of the biggest diners ever was the Mari-Nay on the Lincoln Highway in Rosemont, west of Philadelphia. The U-shaped diner was built by Kullman in 1953. It had three entrances and its 6,000 square feet seated 213. A banquet room was added within a year to seat another 130. A McDonald's replaced it in the 1990s.
 
4) Pennsylvania's most famous diner was the Downingtown Diner. It was featured in the finale of the 1958 sci-fi film, The Blob, starring Steve McQueen. It was bulldozed and replaced in the 1960s by a newer diner.
 
5) Diners were mostly manufactured on the East Coast, but a number of companies arose along Lake Erie, most notably Ward & Dickinson in Silver Creek, N.Y. Many diners in northwest Pennsylvania came from W&D and the other Great Lakes makers.
 
6) One of the state's most memorable dishes is oyster pie at Kuppy's Diner, a remodeled 1938 Ward & Dickinson-brand diner south of Harrisburg in Middletown. It's served every other Friday in the "r" months: September through April. The diner is run by the fourth generation of the Kupp family.
 
7) South Philadephia's Melrose Diner is considered one of the most successful diners ever. Founder Richard Kubach opened his first diner in 1935 and upgraded to the current 106-seater in 1956. The diner even has its own jingle, printed on napkins: "Everybody who knows goes to the Melrose."
 
8) Zinn's Diner, a landmark in Denver, Pa., since 1950, was purchased in 2003 by Lyndon Quinn to become his third Lyndon Diner in the Lancaster area. Zinn's 18-foot-tall mascot, a Dutchman named Amos, was moved to Heritage Center of Lancaster County.
 
9) Somerset's Summit Diner is a rare example of the change from 1950s Exaggerated Modern styling to the Environmental look of the '60s. While sporting stainless steel trim and a terrazzo floor, the 1960 Swingle-brand diner also has decorative wooden ceiling beams, wagon wheel chandeliers, and wood grain Formica.
 
10) Chain restaurants have discovered the draw of diners in the past few years. Denny's opened a Starlite-brand diner in Breezewood, and Eat'n Park opened the Park Classic Diner, a new Kullman-brand diner, in Monroeville. Both towns had factory-built diners decades ago.
 
Visit http://www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's other books, all published by Stackpole, plus his forthcoming projects.
 
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