Nothing like an upbeat, feel-good, hope-springs-eternal kind of news story to start the week.
Today’s was a New York Times tale about incarcerated juvenile offenders in Rhode Island restoring four vintage New England diners. Apparently the defunct diners, including Hickey’s Diner which was hooked to a 1954 Chevy truck in the middle of the town “green” in Taunton, Mass., were schlepped behind the razor wire of the Rhode Island Training Center, a detention facility, by preservationists for the New Hope Diner Project.
“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project.
Not only do the old-fashioned diners get spiffied up for a second act at locations around Rhode Island, but
the kids stay out of trouble, gain valuable training in ceramic tiling, plumbing, electrical and sheet metal work, and discover ambitions they never knew they had. Some inmates also take culinary arts classes and receive food-handling certificates.
According to the story by NYT's Pam Belluck, the diners' menus will be a mix of old diner stand-bys such as corn beef and cabbage, and items that are popular with
the jailhouse population. Those include spicy chicken and a "strawberry mousse" that' s made with Cool Whip and instant strawberry pudding.
The cost of the program is being covered, in part, by a partnership of the American Diner Museum and New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Pawtucket, R.I. The coffee company sells their New Hope coffee (organic, fair trade and shade grown) for $11 a bag, and donates $4 of each bag to the diner re-do project.
Students at a local university are creating business plans for each diner. Angelo’s, an 84-year-old landmark restaurant in Providence will operate the diners, employing the juvenile offenders when they are released.
“Hopefully, one of them will be able to own one,” said Robert Antignano, president of Angelo’s.
Comments