"It Changed Us."
Owners of a big diner and a small diner talk about the effects of the pandemic on their business, their customers, and their future.
Come May 2023, the government will declare the pandemic emergency officially behind us (fingers crossed), a little over three years since it started. Assessment of the impact has only just started, but the early returns point to something unprecedented. I think it’s also safe to say that one sector of the economy that got slapped the hardest was retail and within that, restaurants — and especially the mom-and-pop variety.
According to the National Restaurant Association, the pandemic and the response to it may have caused the closing of 80,000 restaurants. Those that survived today face skyrocketing food costs, even thinner margins, labor shortages, and now supply chain disruptions. It’s not over yet.
How did it affect not only the diner, but the customers they served? No better place to start this inquiry than close to home. Diners big and small abound here still, but even since Hidden City Philadelphia posted my article about them in 2015, their numbers have diminished. How are the remaining holding the line?
I couldn’t think of two better subjects for this inquiry than Daddypop’s Diner and The Dining Car. Both have long histories in my area, both enjoy the steady support of loyal customers, and both anchor their respective neighborhoods.
Daddypop’s is old, stainless steel clad, intimate, and folksy. The Dining Car is newer, huge, bustling, but in its own way, still folksy. In both places, customers are often known by name, multigenerational, typically blue collar, and long-time residents of the neighborhood. And of course, both places still have their counters, a prerequisite of any joint that calls itself a diner.
One doesn’t ask a woman’s age, but while I’m certain Nancy Morozin is older than me, she radiates the energy of a teenager. Simply put, she looks great for someone at any age. In that busy space, she seems everywhere all at once, certifying the smiles on customer’s faces enjoying The Dining Car’s famous chicken croquettes or its “Best of Philly” Jewish apple cake. She knows many by name, sometimes because she sees them weekly.
Nancy’s father Joe Morozin established his first brand new Swingle-built Torresdale Diner in 1961 in an area of Philadelphia still considered remote in those days. Eventually, the neighborhood grew up around the diner, prompting Joe to order a larger and luxurious model in 1981. The business continued to grow with the neighborhood, prospering for another forty years where we find it today. Joe passed away in 2008.
Nancy described to me what sounded like a restaurateur’s nightmare, considering all the other tiny little details that consume time and resources. Philadelphia imposed some of the strictest measures in the region. It shut down almost all retail between March 23 and June 5. It then allowed limited reopening, but its frequent warnings about the dangers of the virus kept everyone on edge. Now they also had to enforce mask-wearing and referee arguments between customers and staff. The often-changing rules raised the anxiety levels for everyone. Matters hit a low point when a customer threw his mask in the hostess’s face.
While most people understood, she assured, the pressures came from all sides. “The city was on top of you,” she said. “They would come in and tell you when your mask wasn’t exactly right.” Sometimes, inspectors would arrive in response to an anonymous tip.
How does a restaurant that has historically operated on razor-thin margins survive three-plus months of shutdown and an extended period of restrictions? Nancy shrugs it off like just another day at the office, but she describes their scramble to get creative and stay nimble. Experience helps.
By the time the pandemic hit, The Dining Car had already ended its long tradition of 24/7 operation, at least during the week. When the city finally gave the all-clear, she found herself without the staff to return to full operation. When I stopped by last November, it shocked me to see posted hours showing only breakfast and lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays. For most of its history, this diner didn’t lock its doors.
“We’re still only at about 75%,” she reports, but she can’t sing the praises of her staff loudly enough. I can’t either. She’s blessed with a crew that just looks like they want to be there.
I asked her if in all her years in operation, the diner ever had to deal with anything like this. Has the city ever told them to shut down for any reason?
“No, never. My father never did either,” she replies. “He used to drive me crazy, because he was always right. I wish he was around when this happened. He would have known what to do.”
When the discussion turns to the future, she’s tight lipped about plans for her diner specifically, but I have to wonder what she thinks about diners in general. No one’s building them anymore and people seeking a career in food service aren’t looking for an 80-hour-per-week slog in the trenches. The broader trends in the industry these days seem to push the idea of less service, not more.
What do we lose, I ask, when we lose the diner? She thinks out loud with concerns about her customers, her employees, and the community. But after some thought, she distills it down to something painfully obvious.
“We lose the people. It’s that simple.”
I fretted more for the smaller, older diners like Daddypop’s during the pandemic than the larger operations. Ken Smith’s fifty-two seat diner serves only breakfast and lunch and closes at 2pm. Customers love it for its big fluffy pancakes and its famous home fries. I usually go for lunch and get the same thing every time — the turkey club. No deli meat here. Daddypop’s stuffs the sandwich with real turkey carved right off the bird, making it maybe the best turkey club sandwich one can get in any diner within a 50-mile radius of Hatboro.
Ken jumped into the business with his wife Beth in 1987. They found this Mountain View-built diner bereft of its counter and original furnishings, removed by the previous owners who ran it as a Chinese restaurant. Beth brought restaurant experience, designed the menu, and worked the kitchen. Ken brought a broad array of mechanical talents to rebuild the counter and booths and provide most of the maintenance. His affinity for antique machinery inspired the diner’s unique interior decor style. Kids love to play with the antique toys he keeps on display.
Cancer would take Beth from Ken and the diner in the mid-90s, but by then, the diner had firmly anchored itself on the north end of Hatboro’s main drag with its concise, two-page menu of classics served by its crack staff. The diner soldiered on, Ken would remarry in 2004, and the diner would continue to attract lines out the door most weekends.
I sat at the booth with Ken and Deb on a bright sunny afternoon after closing time to see how they weathered this storm. Turns out, not so great but better than some. They’re still standing.
“We’re doing about 75% of the business we did before the pandemic,” Ken reveals. Mystified by the missing 25%, he ponders, “When a restaurant closes, you’d expect people to find another place to eat. I don’t see that happening.”
Reopening after Hatboro and the county lifted restrictions on businesses, waitresses reported a high level of “crankiness”, not so much from regulars, but from new and occasional patrons. “When we reopened, people were highly demanding and would get annoyed easily. Some were afraid to come in because of [our] size.”
Daddypop’s made a valiant effort to provide or expand takeout service during the shutdowns. In my observations, takeout normally accounts for a small percentage of a diner’s business. These are places where people come to settle in and be served, not grab and go.
At first, they had people picking up their orders at the rear service entrance that leading to the parking lot. Worse, diners like this one make most of its money on breakfast, which are meals that don’t usually travel well. Nothing’s worse than cold pancakes or eggs.
Ken and Deb palpably restrain themselves when sharing their opinions on their ordeal. Overall, like most of us, they hope they’ve left the worst of it behind them, but the resentment lingers along with the fear of another shoe dropping. Ken thinks that most of their customers share their point of view, which they filter through a thicker lens of skepticism.
“People thought they had a lot of freedom,” Deb explains. “I think we felt like we were in control. But when the government shut things down and didn’t seem to know what they were doing, I considered it like a bad ‘Mad Max’ movie that we survived it. It changed us.”
Like Nancy, Ken and Deb also stress the uncertainty that now hangs over their business. The partitions will remain up until May, because that’s when Washington will declare the emergency over, but Ken doesn’t say that with confidence.
“Every time I turn around, there could be another surprise. It’s hit and miss.”
As for their future, Ken and Deb vow they’re not going anywhere. Ken’s now 78, but he’s not ready to step down yet, this despite a health scare in 2020 that put him in the ICU for an extended stay. He suffered seizures three days after receiving his second Moderna shot. He moves a little slower and he speaks with a bit more effort, but he still looks fit, still has those sparkling baby blues, and his James Coburn good looks.
Getting back to normal means returning to the role their diner serves in Hatboro for its residents and those in surrounding communities, a role that goes beyond the mere food service.
The best diners all seem to have a customer so reliable, the staff can set their watches by their arrival. For Daddypop’s, that’s Bill, an 81-year-old regular who shows up every morning at 5:45 for his coffee.
Deb explains, “It’s not so much the food. It’s more to be around other people. This is a sanctuary.”
“This is a place,” Ken adds, “where there shouldn’t be any stress.”
We ate out a lot more during the pandemic than we do now, between takeout to support local eateries, then at "streeteries" which turned our town into Paris. We once saw three women in sleeping bags, sitting outside at a local restaurant, in November. There was a deep desire to get out of the house and support local businesses with the money we weren't spending on commuting. Our family income has stayed flat the last three years, and with $60 lunch for three of us now costing $80, plus back to the commute, we can't afford to eat out much anymore.