The article discusses the intersection between queer identity and dining culture, particularly in spaces like diners. Author EP reflects on their nostalgia for places like Melrose Diner and how such venues historically served as social hubs for queer individuals, providing a refuge for 'weird kids' to connect discreetly. The conversation emphasizes diners’ role in fostering egalitarian spaces where anyone could belong, contrasting this with the recent emergence of queer fine dining. The author argues that the atmosphere created in diners allowed queer folks to 'queer the space' even if unnoticed by the mainstream.
Diners were always the place where, at least in my Cleveland suburbs, all the weird kids went. I wasn't out, but I remember looking around the room, and thinking to myself, 'Wow, that boy with the Smith's haircut and the trench coat is really cute.' I didn't know it then, but that was a proto-gay feeling. Looking back, that is a way that we queered the space.
There’s a throughline from the automats of the '30s, where anyone was welcome as long as you had a nickel to put in the slot. You’d take out your food, and sit there, and you could be in a room and cruise under the radar of straight people. But, there was a sense that this was a place for everyone, and because of that, queer people made it their own.
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