But many diners got their start in the middle of the country when a man named Arthur Valentine created the Valentine Lunch System and opened a chain of diners that were built in sections by the Metal Building Company of Wichita.
Valentine saw opportunity ahead, and began marketing the buildings to others who saw a realization of a dream of owning their own business. However, timing was not on Valentine’s side, because after constructing only a few buildings the advent of World War II made it impossible to acquire the necessary materials. Arthur Valentine had to wait until the war was over to continue his enterprise, which took off with the post-war building boom. By 1948 Valentine diners had found homes in 38 states, with many in the heartland and along the heavily travelled Route 66.
The forerunner of the diner was a movable feast called the lunch wagon, invented in the 1870s. The next step was a more permanent housing, often adapted from obsolete horse drawn streetcars or old railroad cars. Though the term ‘diner’ derived from the railroad ‘dining car’, Valentine diners could best be described as small boxes. The square-sided structures were designed to be moved on flatbed trucks, then quickly assembled at their new locations. The interior consisted of a row of eight to ten stools placed around a counter, behind which was the food preparation work space. An original Valentine did not include booth space, but after Arthur Valentine’s death in 1954, the company was sold to new owners and later models accommodated the addition of a couple of booths and even a drive-up or walk-up window. The end of the Valentine era was signaled in the 1960s, when burger chains and urban growth began to compete with the small-town, mom-and-pop operation style of the little diners. By 1975 the company and the concept were gone for good…