Franks Diner is a

Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company The Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was a manufacturer of roadside diners from 1917 to 1952. The company produced some 2,000 of the long, narrow, primarily metal buildings, perhaps more than any other firm. Prefabricated ...

lunch car

diner A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a co ...

Kenosha, Wisconsin Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Keno ...

Notable features

The diner seats 55 patrons and is known for the numerous slogans posted on the walls, such as "Order what you want, eat what you get." The diner's signature dish is the Garbage Plate, which consists of a large

omelette In cuisine, an omelette (also spelled omelet) is a dish made from beaten eggs, fried with butter or oil in a frying pan (without stirring as in scrambled egg). It is quite common for the omelette to be folded around fillings such as chives, ...

cooked together with

hash browns Hash browns, also spelled hashed browns, are a popular American and British breakfast food, consisting of finely chopped potatoes that have been fried until browned. Hash browns first started appearing on breakfast menus in New York City in th ...

and meat.

History

The dining car was built in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1926 and transported on a railroad

flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry ...

to Kenosha. It was then pulled by six horses to its current downtown location near the shoreline of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that ...

. Anthony Franks, who first learned of the restaurant opportunity through a magazine article, paid () plus $325 in shipping charges to establish Franks' Diner. Over the years, there have been few changes to the structural appearance of the diner. The original lunch car has an open grill and counter with 17 stools. In 1935, a small dining room was added, which now houses seven booths. Additionally, a larger kitchen was added in the mid-1940s. The Franks family operated Franks Diner continuously until 2001 when they sold it to Lynn Groleau, Chris Schwartz, and Kris Derwae. In 2006, Derwae sold her share to Groleau and Schwartz. In December 2010, Kevin Ervin and Julie Rittmiller purchased the restaurant and stated that they had no plans to make changes in Franks Diner's operations. Many renovations have been completed on Franks Diner since 2001. The original kitchen, then pantry, was renovated into an additional dining area. The arched wooden ceiling and much of the woodwork was restored. Removing layers of paint uncovered the original "Franks DINER" hand-lettered sign painted on what was the outer side of the original dining car, now facing the inside of the main dining area.

Celebrity patrons

In past years, Vaudeville and other entertainment acts at local theaters were popular. Many performers, including

The Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appear ...

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in '' ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was ba ...

Liberace Władziu Valentino Liberace (May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987) was an American pianist, singer, and actor. A child prodigy born in Wisconsin to parents of Italian and Polish origin, he enjoyed a career spanning four decades of concerts, recordi ...

and members of the Lawrence Welk orchestra, dined at Franks. Recent celebrity sightings include

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

news anchor

Ron Magers Ron Magers (born August 27, 1944) is a former American news anchor. Magers worked for WLS-TV, the ABC owned-and-operated station in Chicago, Illinois, where he co-anchored the top-rated 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. broadcasts with Cheryl Bu ...

; New York

weather presenter A weather presenter (also known colloquially in North America as a weatherman or weather broadcaster) is a person who presents the weather forecast daily on radio, television or internet news broadcasts. Using diverse tools, such as projected weath ...

and actor

Lonnie Quinn Lonnie William Quinn (born August 9, 1963 in Cheshire, Connecticut) is the lead weather anchor on WCBS-TV in New York City. Quinn used to serve as weather anchor for '' CBS This Morning Saturday'' and currently appears on the CBS Evening News. He a ...

; and

Peter Tork Peter Halsten Thorkelson (February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019), better known by his stage name Peter Tork, was an American musician and actor. He was best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of the Monkees and a co-star of the TV ...

The Monkees The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was conc ...

; and

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...

host

Guy Fieri Guy Ramsay Fieri (, ; '' né'' Ferry; born January 22, 1968) is an American restaurateur, author, and an Emmy Award winning television presenter. He co-owns three restaurants in California, licenses his name to restaurants in New York City, Las ...

, who featured the diner on ''

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives ''Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives'' (often nicknamed ''Triple D'' and stylized as ''Diners, Drive-Ins, Dives'') is an American food reality television series that premiered on April 23, 2007, on the Food Network. It is hosted by Guy Fieri. The show o ...

''. Franks Diner has been featured in numerous other television shows, travel magazines, newspapers and radio programs.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.Franksdinerkenosha.com/ Restaurants in Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Kenosha, Wisconsin Diners in the United States Tourist attractions in Kenosha County, Wisconsin Restaurants established in 1926 Commercial buildings completed in 1926 1926 establishments in Wisconsin