If you're planning a road trip around the state, there are worse ideas than following in Pete Genovese's footsteps and exploring the best diners New Jersey has to offer.
Say what you will about the Garden State - our taxes hover near the stratosphere, our roads and our bridges are broken, our politicians' motives are often dubious - there's one art form at which we excel.
The Jersey diner.
"Diners are a beautiful thing," says Pete Kikianis, owner of the Park Wood Diner in Maplewood. The most eloquent speaker could not have said it better.
Kikianis' establishment made it onto the latest countdown by diner maven Pete Genovese, who recently offered his list of the best diner in each of New Jersey's 21 counties.
Almost three decades ago, Genovese devoted a year to visiting every diner in the state, coming away with both an appreciation and an understanding of their unique flavor.
"A diner is not only a place to eat, it is a hangout, a community center, often more of a town hall than Town Hall is," the connoisseur wrote at the time. "Wealth, possession, background count for little; inside every is equal."
The best diner in each of the Garden State's 21 counties
Today, New Jersey boasts 600 diners, more than any other state. They are as wondrous and varied as the customers they serve.
Lamb curry and biryanis at the Shamong Diner in Burlington County, and kale cranberry wraps at the Readington Diner in Hunterdon County - these would not have been on the menu when Walter Scott invented the form, selling goodies from a horse-drawn wagon in Providence, R.I., circa 1872.
But that's one of the beauties of diners: They adapt to the times.
That doesn't mean diners have strayed from their original form. You can be sure you'll find a plateful of steaming pancakes at the Tuckahoe Family Diner in Cape May County, or a deep-dish chicken pot pie at Ponzio's in Cherry Hill - along with the latest political gossip out of Camden County.
Walk in the door at Angelo's Family Diner in Gloucester County and the wait staff will greet you by name if you're a regular, and probably ask how your day is going if you're not.
For the first-timer (does such a person actually exist?), Genovese recommends the Summit Diner in Union County.
He calls it a "time-warp wonder," citing its curved rood, its wood paneling and its padded booths" while extolling the place's sliders: Taylor ham, eggs and cheese.
Diners are to New Jersey what barbeque joints are to Texas. They ground us, welcome us home. They remind us, generation after generation, who we are in all our diversity. They nurture our bodies and our souls.
If you're planning a road trip around the state, there are worse ideas than following in Genovese's footsteps and exploring the best diners New Jersey has to offer. Or, better yet, discover some of your own.
Happy eating.
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