The demise of the diner.

I miss diners.

Not the faux-retro kind with $19 avocado toast and a playlist curated by someone born after the diner had already begun to disappear.

I mean a diner.

Sunday morning. Vinyl booth. Formica table. A waitress who calls you hon whether she likes you or not.

Coffee that is not single-origin, shade-grown or described as having notes of elderberry and dark chocolate.

It is diner coffee.

Hot.

Brown.

Bottomless.

And somehow perfect.

I want two eggs, crispy bacon, home fries well done and toast. Maybe a side of something I absolutely do not need. I want the NY Times Sunday paper spread across the table, sections everywhere, while someone wanders by every seven minutes and tops off my coffee without asking.

Instead, we have coffee culture.

We have beautiful little cafés with exposed brick, succulents and people working on screenplays.

We have Starbucks, where I can order coffee in a vocabulary that sounds vaguely Italian and get a pastry that looks considerably better than it tastes.

What I cannot seem to find anymore is breakfast.

Not brunch.

Breakfast.

There is a difference.

Brunch has cocktails, microgreens and eggs that have been emotionally supported.

Breakfast has bacon.

The diner was never just about food. It was part of the American landscape. Cops at the counter. Families after church. Teenagers at midnight. Old men solving the problems of the world over coffee. Couples nursing hangovers. Truck drivers, nurses, lawyers and construction workers all eating roughly the same eggs.

Nobody asked who designed the room.

Nobody photographed the pancakes.

They just ate them.

And slowly, these wonderful little cultural institutions are disappearing, replaced by something shinier, more expensive and remarkably similar everywhere you go.

That may be what bothers me most.

We have traded individuality for consistency.

Corporate America has become very good at making sure that wherever we are, we can have exactly the same experience.

The same coffee.

The same chairs.

The same muffin.

The same playlist.

Convenient? Absolutely.

A little depressing?

Also, absolutely.

Diners had personalities. Some were fabulous. Some were slightly questionable. Some had menus the size of the Manhattan phone book and offered everything from matzo ball soup to chicken parm to pancakes at 11:30 at night.

You did not need to understand the business model.

You just needed to decide between rye and whole wheat.

I do not want my Sunday breakfast elevated.

I do not want it reimagined.

I do not want my potatoes infused with anything.

I want eggs, bacon, home fries, diner coffee and a newspaper.

If someone wearing a pink uniform with a frilly handkerchief name tag, an elaborate up do and comfortable shoes could call me hon while refilling an endless cup of coffee, even better.