While most of my friends have gone to their hometown during fall break and I remain in my college dorm, I can’t help but fondly recall all of the places I miss about my home in New Jersey. While I would love to write recommendations to you about the places you should visit, let’s be real, there is a very unlikely chance that you will go out of your way to visit New Jersey. Unless you want to see a gross version of Miami beach or you want to feel like royalty by having someone else pump your gas, there isn’t too much to draw people in. But it’s home for me. And one of the places that embodies home for me the most is the Broadway Diner.
The Broadway Diner is a small diner just a couple minutes from me and my highschool, which is where I’ve shared so many fun memories and milkshakes throughout the years. With all of the negative qualities about New Jersey, one redeeming quality is definitely the food and the Broadway Diner is no exception. From the breakfast food, the chicken tenders, to the milk shakes, the delicious food hits the spot when you need it most. Of course it wasn’t anything gourmet but it was flavorful and filling comfort food. The banner in front of the diner even says “World’s Best Pancakes” (which is complete crap because the whole world certainly doesn’t have a pancake competition and even if it did a tiny diner from New Jersey would not be in the running). But aside from the taste of the food what makes this place so important in my life and in so many others are the memories made there. As a twenty-four hour diner, there were many opportunities to make memories no matter the time. So many dinners after tennis practices with my mom, cast parties after performances, breakfasts after sleepovers with my best friends, and everything in between.
There is nothing distinctly special about this diner other than the fact that it is geographically closest with the most accessible schedule, but the familiarity and memories connected to it is what makes the Broadway Diner stick out on the map to myself and so many others. Coming to college, I’ve noticed that diners are less of a big deal than they are in other states, but I have recently learned that it’s because the most diners are located in New Jersey. At least in New Jersey, and I’m sure in other places too, diners are a very sacred place to come to no matter what the circumstance and have tasty food that will warm your soul. Now even if you do come to visit New Jersey for whatever reason I don’t expect you to go out of your way to go to this diner. But when I come back home for Thanksgiving break, I know that my friends and I will make sure we take a pit stop at the Broadway Diner.