The American Road is paved with hope"
Ford Motor Co Ad 1951
Originally located next to the famous Lackawanna Warehouse in downtown New Jersey ‘Ted’s Plaza Diner’ traded from a plot of land just off Jersey Avenue in Jersey City right opposite the Hudson River looking across to New York. The diner was an important local landmark serving up simple food and drink for
the hard working employees of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad Co, office workers and for the community it sat amongst. An original diner manufactured by the Mountain View Diner Company in 1950 Ted’s Plaza quickly built a reputation for its wholesome freshly prepared dishes – food that spawned a universal language in the shape of hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and malts. Parked outside were the trappings of prosperity – Caddy’s, Chevy’s and ‘Vette’s – elongated giants, explosions of chrome inspired by aircraft design and the Race For Space. Extravagant beasts, each one a creative masterpiece encompassing fantasies of speed and real excitement about what the future may hold. The American Diner had become a style Icon, representing honesty and value all in an extravagant style that is out of this world. Unfortunately even the greatest style icons fall out of fashion and favour and so Ted’s began to loose its appeal, eventually the site it sat on was earmarked for development. Would Ted’s face the same fate of lots of diners from this period and close for ever? The diner was snapped up to form part of a small chain known as ‘Fat Boys’ diners and was duly uprooted and shipped over the United Kingdom sometime in 1992. Unfortunately the chain never developed and the diner was sold on sympathetically refurbished renamed and reopened as the ‘Rock Island Diner’ in Tamworth Staffordshire on the intersection of the M42 and A5 for a number of years. All change again towards the end of the century the diner was on the move again, this time into storage for a short while before being purchased by a fairground operator in North Wales. After being sold onto yet another new owner and put into storage on the south coast we purchased it in February 2011. Now called ‘Mimis Vintage Diner’ it has once again been restored back to its former glory. Whether for a cup of ‘Joe’ to go, to hang out and gossip with friends huddled over a malt or coke float, celebrate your birthday, or even hold your club meeting we guarantee the food and service to be as good and wholesome as it always has been. At Mimi’s we aim to recapture a little of what made those times so special, with an experience that will fill those that lived through that age with nostalgia and gently amuse and inform those who did not. Book in, experience and enjoy......now pass the ketchup!
