In early summer 2025, the USA Today Network New Jersey team spoke with diner owners, authors, researchers and everyday patrons about the state of the New Jersey diner. Here are eight takeaways from our project.

New Jersey's status as the "diner capital of the world" is due to its many diners of course, but also because it was home to several diner building manufacturers , including the Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company, which began selling pre-fab diners in 1917.

Though we still have hundreds of diners in operation, as many as 150 diners have closed in New Jersey in the last decade. Fewer than two dozen 24-hour diners remain in operation.

The diner industry has experienced ebbs and flows before; facing over-saturation and competition from fast food in the 1960s and '70s, the total amou

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