Giaimo joins nostalgia craze with '40s-themed Silver Diner

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 30, 1989 by Bill Carlino

Giaimo joins nostalgia craze with '40s-themed Silver Diner

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Bob Giaimo, who established a food-service reputation with the light-eating American Cafe concept in 1976, is throwing his hat into the retro-style diner derby.

Slated to open in early February after $1.1 million in construction costs, Giaimo's Silver Diner is a stainless-steel resurrrection of a 1940s design, complete with marble countertops, a jukebox, glowing neon, and a 6-foot outdoor clock tower.

He projected first-year sales of $3 million to $4 million at the Rockville Pike outlet and said he expected three franchised units to be open by year-end.

The Silver Diner joins an increasingly crowded segment anchored by Johnny Rockets in Los Angeles, Ediner in Minneapolis, Ed Debevic's in Chicago, Fog City and Max's in San Francisco, and the Empire in New York.

The number of true diners in the United States ebbed to a paltry 2,500 units after hitting its high-water mark with 6,700 back in 1940 but rose 8 percent in the last two years, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Nevertheless, Giaimo claimed the segment has room for what he asserted is an authentic reproduction.

"Nobody has really redone the classic diner," Giaimo said. "I mean an unpretentious neighborhood operation where all types of people mesh and get food like the food you would eat at home. It's been a long time since somebody built a traditional-type diner from scratch."

"I kept asking myself, 'Where can today's customer go for a quick high-quality meal?'" Giaimo said. "Family-style restaurants are boring and plain. Look at Denny's and Big Boy. They're solid concepts but very boring. By the same token, the public is tiring of fast food."

The 37-year-old Giaimo established his reputation as industry prophet with the American Cafe Restaurant that he founded 13 years ago, now an eight-unit operation whose fare features less oils and utilizes fresh herbs and spices. W.R. Grace & Co. bought Giaimo's interest in American Cafe in 1987.

Giamio spent a year in planning the Silver Diner by researching and exchanging ideas with operators of landmark diners throughout the country.

"I knew I needed to do a significant amount of background research on running a diner before we started," Giaimo said. "I didn't want to plunge into something I wasn't ready for."

So Giaimo and Y pe Hengst, his executive chef and director of operations, embarked on a three-month cross-country bivouac in which they visited 500 diners, casual-theme restaurants, and family restaurants.

Giaimo scribbbled down hundreds of pages of notes, snapped photos, and tasted thousands of menu items to generate ideas for his diner prototype. At the Dining Car diner in Philadelphia, he and Hengst actually lived with the owners and worked 18-hour shifts to learn the intricacies involved in early-morning openings and late closings.

"We found that the family-dining segment is catering to a totally different type of demographic than it did twenty years ago," Giaimo said. "When the Silver Diner opens, you'll see both pickup trucks and Porsches in the parking lot."

However, Giaimo cautioned, don't expect to find any faddish staff attire or decor at the Silver Diner.

"You won't find pony-tailed and saddle-shoed waitresses or old cars hanging from the ceiling," he said. "We're restaurateurs, not entertainers. You can't do both successfully."

To develop the menu, Hengst tested more than 1,000 items. The last tasting period encompassed two months in which a panel selected the final items with the use of blind ballots.

"You should never let a chief executive or a president of a company tell you what yoiu should serve," Giaimo said. "Our tast panel consisted of ordinary people who were not directly involved with the food-service industry. You need food that will pass the 'truck driver test,' and that's what ours does."

The Silver Diner menu contains 75 items, including Blue plate specials and timeless diner favorities, such as corned beef hash, pork chops, pot roast, and, of course, meat loaf.

"Customers want good food at reasonable prices," Giaimo said. "That's not a new theory, but that's what a diner offers. A diner is one of the few food operations that have fared well during economic recessions."