SPEAKERS BUREAU
Speakers List:
Printer-friendly version
Daniel Zilka
A History of Rhode Island Diners
Rhode Island and diners go together like apple pie and vanilla ice cream. The origins of the diner can be traced to Walter Scott, a part-time pressman and type compositor in Providence, Rhode Island. Around 1858 when Scott was 17-years old he supplemented his income by selling sandwiches and coffee from a basket to newspaper night workers and patrons of men's club rooms. By 1872 business became so lucrative that Scott quit his printing work and began to sell food at night from a horse-drawn covered express wagon parked outside the Providence Journal newspaper office. In doing so, Walter Scott unknowingly inspired the birth of what would become one of America's most recognized icons -- the diner.
This talk will inform its audience not only of the history of the origins of diners, but to identify and look at Rhode Island diners through the ages. Places like Haven Brothers and the Silver Top Diner, the Modern Diner and the Seaplane, diners that are gone or still here, they all have stories to tell.
This multi-media presentation will use film clips of diners in the movies, many photographs of local RI diners past and present and even some songs that sing about diners!
Needs: Powerpoint projector/ dvd player/screen, table to display memorabila