Throughout our disparate American lives, we share one commonality that seems to cross all socio-economic lines: No matter our politics, professions or personal positions on the polarizing issue of mayo as an appropriate dipping sauce for french fries (pro!), we all seem to seek out comfort … and comfort food … in the unique coziness of the Great American diner. Not some upscale, elitist restaurant where they laugh at you behind your back when you order “macaroni and lobster … hold the lobster.” (I am looking at you, Mizuna.)

No, I’m talking about casual and cheap greasy spoons where you can go at any hour (and at any B.A.C.) for a reliably average omelet, chicken fried steak or Cobb salad. Preferably with a jukebox at every booth and slices of to-go pie in the fridge by the front door. No reservations. No dress code. No pretense. Just heaping, oversized portions of home cooking from the many lifelong, hard-working, unflappable waitresses who have crafted entire careers (and characters) slinging your hash with a side of sass — sunny-side up.

Dining establishments are often the backdrops for the most miraculous and mundane moments of our lives. For me, it started with the Cheese Frenchee at King’s Food Host. As an angsty teen poet, it was the PBJB (peanut butter, strawberry jam and banana slices) at Paris on the Platte. As a late-night sports clerk at The Denver Post, it was racing to order two pints of Harp just before last call at Duffy’s Shamrock. For years, it was the quick Friday night dinner break at El Noa Noa, where my framed photo hung on the wall for having eaten my 500th smothered super-bean burrito. When I started reporting on the local theater community, my go-to haunt became Racine’s, where a woman once dumped me over our Valentine’s Night dinner because, she told me, offering her a rose in every possible color was emotionally smothering.

And then there have been Denver’s diners. Like … the Denver Diner, where the waitress would always refill my jumbo Diet Dr. Pepper in a paper cup to go. And Tom’s Diner. And Swift’s Breakfast House. And the 20th Street Cafe. And Nick’s Diner on Federal Boulevard. And, perhaps above all others … The Breakfast King on South Santa Fe Drive and Mississippi Avenue. The one urban diner you had to deliberately seek out because otherwise there was no possible reason to go anywhere near it.

And with the whiplash, back-to-back closures of Swift’s and the Breakfast King last week … those diners are all gone (and Annie’s Café is up for sale). Some to development. Most to the pandemic. A terse note posted on the Breakfast King door says rather snarkily, “No one wants to work anymore.” Chalk it up to supply-chain issues or changing consumer tastes, but the writing is in the hollandaise sauce: The American diner is dying. And what we are losing is far more than nostalgia. And kitschy decor, four-hour people-watching and old-fashioned country meatloaf.

We’re losing a piece of Americana that united us in a way that only food can. For most, attending a fancy and expensive restaurant is a sign of status that is out of the reach (or taste) of the more common among us. (I say with no shame that I prefer to eat anywhere that doesn’t use cloth napkins.) Some can’t afford fast food because it’s too expensive; others won’t go near it because it’s too cheap. And then there’s the fast-food vibe. Bree Davies, a proud local mixer-upper and host of the popular weekday City Cast Denver podcast, says: “A dine-in Burger King is my idea of a hellscape.”

But everyone, whether their collars are blue, white, tie-dyed or rainbowed, loves the 24-hour diner, a welcoming place where you can walk in at any hour and sit alongside politicians, cops, teachers, janitors and panhandlers spending their street-corner change on a hot cup of coffee.

“Diners are a rarity in the American culture in that once you walk inside the door, class just melts away — and I think that is the root of their magic,” said Davies, adding with a laugh: “I mean, diners are one of the only places where I am ever in close proximity to police and it’s not a hostile situation.”

When former Denver mayoral candidate Kalyn Heffernan got out of jail in 2017, the self-described queer, disabled, rabble-rousing rapper went straight to the Denver Diner. The Wheelchair Sports Camp MC had been arrested for staging a three-day sit-in at Republican Senator Cory Gardner’s office demanding disability rights. Who wouldn’t be jonesing for some hot fish ’n chips?

Diners are a place to chew the fat … while chewing the fat. The food doesn’t have to be great. In fact, it rarely is. Diner food is ordinary, but it is consistently ordinary. The food is always hot and the service is (almost) always great. The menus not only rarely change, they are remarkably consistent across states and interstates. There is something comforting, Davies said, about a newcomer from Jersey knowing they can hit a random diner in Denver and order pretty much the same two eggs over-easy they could order at a diner back in Hoboken. And maybe even meet someone interesting and share a conversation over tater tots.

“I worry that we are losing these opportunities to meet each other in public spaces and then realize that, at the end of the day, everyone just wants the consistency of a nice, warm, dependable meal without a hassle,” Davies said.

The diner isn’t quite dead in Denver, but the plate is getting cold. We still have Pete’s Kitchen, the Breakfast Queen, Sam’s No. 3, the Chuck Wagon Diner, the Breakfast Palace, Moonlight Diner, Javier’s, McCoy’s, a newly resurrected Zaidy’s, the Butcher Block Café, Great Scott’s Eatery, the Apple Ridge Café, the Colorado Springs-born Gunther Toody’s franchise (and many more.) But our most iconic, locally owned, 24-hour institutions are now pretty much gone, leaving us with the corporate banality of Denny’s, IHOP and Village Inn. But at least those franchises are keeping the light on — and the grill hot — for nocturnal truckers and rockers across the metro. Late-night dining is crucial to the economic health of any metropolitan city because, as Davies says, “we don’t shut off at midnight.” But it’s just not the same.

“I don’t think we realize how integral it is to our city and to our existence that we have these common places where we can cross paths with just about everyone in the city,” Davies said. “We just don’t have them anymore — except maybe the DMV.”

And good luck getting hot biscuits and gravy at the Denver Motor Vehicle office.

Losing our diners is losing a part of Old Denver that is worth lamenting and worth being upset about.

“People forget that we were this working-class town for a really long time, and diners were the last vestiges of a working-class city that embraced everybody,” Davies said. “I just worry that we are losing our grasp on what really made us a wonderful city.”

Denver Gazette contributing columnist John Moore is an award-winning journalist who was named one of the 10 most influential theater critics by American Theatre Magazine. He is now producing independent journalism as part of his own company, Moore Media.