Little Gem Diner Is Back!

A couple of weekends ago I finally came back to town for good (for a while) and my wife came home the same day, although a bit later. We had a great Saturday together before she had to leave early Sunday morning. She called her friend, who was going to meet us for breakfast, and the friend recommended Little Gem Diner. I was overly elated; it was on!

I remember Little Gem from back in the day, from my mod 20’s to early 30’s, when it still looked like it was contained within an old steel paneled oversized trailer. I remember going there mainly for lunches and most of the time ordering the meatloaf special, which came with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side of corn, and after I’d taken my first couple of bites I’d mix the entire thing together; hey, that’s how I roll.

So we went to Little Gem Diner on Spencer Street, and strangely enough I couldn’t remember how I used to get there, and that’s probably because of all the road changes over the years. Good thing for GPS. 🙂 To say it looked much different on the outside would be an overstatement. No more steel (probably tin?) paneling, a new sign, and fancy car and an expanded visage caught my eye. I just smiled as I got my pictures and then went inside.

Seems that we beat the crowd, which meant we were immediately seated; there’s never anything depressing about that. I decided to order a traditional breakfast, 2 eggs, an english muffin and some bacon… with a couple of additions. I asked for the meal with a hamburger because they offered one and I asked for some sausage gravy so I could pour it over the entire thing. My wife ordered a fritatta.

When they came both plates were teeming with food galore, way more food that either of us were going to consume. I sectioned off a portion, which turned out to be probably less than half, and my wife portioned off even less, and yet for both of us it was still a whole lot of food. And good food it was; truthfully, I’ve found few places that can mess up breakfast (though there are a couple), and this was great. By the time we were ready to leave, totally full, it seemed like we had two full containers of leftovers (which my wife turned into 7 separate meals later on; that woman has talents). I also saw one of my local buddies on the way out; even better. 🙂

Still, now that I had been to Little Gem I realized that I wouldn’t be satisfied until I went for a daytime meal of some sort. In this case, three days later I found myself back at dinner time, around 8:30, which turned out to be lucky because unlike the old days when they stayed open all night, now they close at 10PM, which is probably both smart and safe. And, like the old days, I ordered the meatloaf dinner, which came with the same accoutrements as it did back then. I know there’s a different cook and a different owner so I didn’t expect it to taste the same, and I was correct on that. Yet it was all still pretty tasty. And of course I mixed it all together after the first few bites; some things never change.

I didn’t order dessert on purpose because these days I track my calories more. However, I did “try” by asking if they had anything with peanut butter in it. The lady said they didn’t but people were always asking them for it; something to think about guys. lol However, they had a lot of pies and cake on hand, so if I’d really wanted to I could have found quite a few things to eat.

This time I sat in the area where the stools and platform used to sit in the old design, but things are much cleaner than in the past I must admit. I almost decided to go for the french fries instead of the mashed potatoes because I remember that, other than McDonald’s fries, I used to think they were the best in town. Oh well, maybe another day.

All in all it was a wonderful experience. I know I’ll be heading back one day, and I’m glad it’s there because at the right times of the day you should be able to go in, sit right down and have a nice meal, as they have lots of choices. If there are a lot of other places like Little Gem I’m going to have to find them, but for now this is one of my favorite places.
 

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