Chef Ris Lacoste’s mentor, the Beard-winning Bob Kinkead, always pushed his prize pupil to open a diner. Kinkead wasn’t trying to suggest that Lacoste lacks the skills to lead her own fine-dining establishment. He was acknowledging something true about the woman who kept his restaurants humming for years: Lacoste always wanted her own diner—or, more [...]

The publisher of Roadside, the magazine long dedicated to the chrome culture of classic diners, is not at all happy with Silver Diner's plan to demolish its Rockville location and build a spacious new $4.5 million diner just down the road. Roadside's Randy Garbin writes that he first visited the Rockville diner shortly after it [...]

When I spoke with Capital City Diner co-owner Matt Ashburn back in February, he didn't rule out the idea of serving liquor but thought he'd wait at least a year or two before applying for a license. He wanted to establish his business first in Trinidad. The news last week that Cap City applied for [...]

You know what? I don’t give a damn that Capital City Diner buys the majority of its ingredients from a giant food-service company, and I’ll tell you why. Sometimes I love a place just because of its history or its significance to a neighborhood or its atmosphere. (I’m sorry, but I don’t visit Florida Avenue [...]

During an interview I conducted late last year with Ris Lacoste, the fixture for a decade at 1789, the chef revealed some of the inspiration behind her new place, RIS, in the West End: Bob Kinkead, my dearest friend and mentor, said, ‘Ris, you look for an underserved neighborhood, you know.’ He would always say, [...]

When Matt Ashburn and Patrick Carl first spotted the historic Avoca Diner on eBay more than 11 months ago, they had no idea what a hassle it would be to buy the 1947 prefab structure, move it to D.C., and prepare it for its second life as Capital City  Diner. Nor did the owners know much [...]

The neon "OPEN" sign said it all: After months of headaches and delays and budget crunches (much of which Y&H will detail in tomorrow's column), Capital City Diner finally opened for business yesterday in Trinidad. It was packed with neighbors, well-wishers, reporters, and even a surprise out-of-town guest. After the jump is my brief snapshot [...]

Tom and Lynn Dougherty step back in time The last time Lynn Dougherty laid eyes on Capital City Diner, it was called the Avoca Diner, and it was run by a woman named Brenda Remchuk, a former Corning Glass employee who decided to get into the grease-slinging business. That was in Avoca, N.Y., in 1991. [...]

We here at Y&H Central have two suggestions on how to celebrate this important day: 1. Go to the nearest IHOP. (Location finder here.) Order a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. They're free today until 10 p.m. Well, they're free if you're a total assmunch and don't make a donation to the Children's Miracle Network, which supports children's [...]

The Avoca Family Diner, circa 1993 Y&H received an e-mail earlier this week from Randy Garbin, publisher of Roadside magazine and its electronic version Roadside Online. Garbin's magazine is a love letter to diners and their role in American grease-tronomy. Garbin sent me a PDF version of a piece he wrote in 1993 about the Avoca Family Diner, which was [...]