Get Your Pictures: The American City Diner to be Razed
Built new in 1988, the first retro diner's thirty-year run earned its own place in history.
During a trip to North Carolina from Massachusetts in 1989, a friend living in D.C. suggested we make a stop at the American City Diner in Chevy Chase. Still a year before the launch of Roadside, and before I knew all that much about diner history or whether or not companies still built them, the diner confused me. I couldn’t figure out if it was brand new or just meticulously maintained.
Thanks to a tip by way of Michael Engle and the Dinerville News Facebook group, I learned that after thirty-five years, the Kullman-built diner might have a date with a bulldozer. The website DC Urban Turf reports that an application for its demolition was issued. The diner’s founder, Jeffery Gildenhorn died in 2017 and the diner closed a year later.
Here’s what I wrote about it for the proposed book Diners of Maryland in 2012:
The American City Diner anchors the Chevy Chase neighborhood in the far Northwestern part of the city. Though the untrained eye might discern otherwise, this retro-designed Kullman opened its doors in 1988. In its own way, however, this diner marks a significant milestone in diner history as the first retro style diner, predating the much more famous Silver Diner by two years.
For this project, Kullman used its "Challenger" template, its first post-war model diner that featured vertical fluted exterior trimmed with stainless steel. Inside, the diner features lavish amounts of stainless, polished laminates, and tile-work typical of the industry's golden age. However, the proportions more accurately reflect contemporary standards. Generally wider and taller than the actual Challenger model, the size allows for greater seating capacity.
Founded and run by Jeffery Gildenhorn, the American City lays it on extra thick with nostalgia. I counted thirteen prominently displayed photos of Marilyn Monroe just in the diner! Add to that shots of James Dean, Marlon Brando, Bogie, and others and the diner presents quite a gallery of long-lost Hollywood stardom.
Since its opening, Gildenhorn added a 32-seat enclosed patio onto the diner that also serves as a small movie theater where he shows classic films on a nightly basis during the warmer months.
The visual feast continues with an operating scale model train that runs along the diner's ceiling perimeter and a rather mighty collection of coin-op machines that extend from the vestibule well into the diner itself. In fact, the diner serves as a veritable museum of pre-1959 American culture all packed in a 1980s-vintage building designed to look like it came from the 1940s.
Given that the place will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary in 2018, the three decades of wear and tear tends to reinforce its retro visage. Anyone who likes their diners as they like their jeans and pickup trucks, faded and roughed up, will feel quite comfortable here.
They'll also get quite a lesson on the history of Jeffery Gildenhorn. Apparently, besides the diner, the entrepreneur and impresario has led quite an illustrative career in the District of Columbia and he does quite an effective job of using the diner and its website to let his customers know that. Indeed, it's by no accident that his bio on the diner's website reads like a political tract since he did run for mayor of D.C. in 1998.
Oh right, and the place serves food as well, for which the online reviews paint a very positive picture, but I'd suggest sticking to the basics. While a busy place, the diner definitely benefits from its high profile location in a prosperous neighborhood.
Have you visited the American City? What did you think? Please share in the comments.