An Abandoned Luncheonette

It's rusty, old, and crusty.

Before drive-through restaurants revolutionized the fast food industry, the typical destinations for a quick meal were automats and lunch counters. An automat is essentially an entire restaurant served via vending machines, and a lunch counter's basically a bar that sells cheap food and coffee - think the classic American diner - with a side of despair. While automats were mostly relegated to urban sprawls, the lunch counter dominated both urban and rural America throughout the first half of the 20th century, often in pre-existing rowshops but, especially outside cities, regularly inhabiting purpose-manufactured structures which earned the name luncheonette.

Of course, as the drive-through concept reinvented the American way of eating, it decimated the traditional sit-down restaurants. No segment was more thoroughly obliterated than the already at-risk lunch counters, as dollar coffee and hot dishes served by a tired waitress were easily surpassed by pre-formed patties and five-dollar coffee handed to drivers by teenagers paid below minimum wage. As a result of this symptom of late-stage capitalism, many of those shining aluminum and chrome luncheonettes shuttered, and, being ill-fit for use beyond what they were expressly designed for, have been left abandoned where they sat or hauled off to dumping grounds specializing in forgotten dreams.

This luncheonette has sat sinking into the very ground it once served customers on for upwards of fifty years. Its marquee blank, most locals can't recall its name, nor what greasy fare long ago crossed its counter. In lieu of customers, a succession of hooligans, feral cats, and down-on-their-luck unhoused parafolk have passed through the door (and windows), exploring, wandering, and looking for shelter. Despite all the time measured in its peeling paint, this luncheonette remains a fitting place for a momentary reprieve from the world passing around it.

No (real) beds, one (frightening) toilet. Somebody's obviously been in residence, but all they had was a used yoga mat and second-or-third-hand pillows. And whatever's left in the old refrigerators, I guess. Furnished and decorated, though plenty more canvas left for your para's own grime and few earthly possessions. No mods or build mode trickery here, just a lot of elbow grease. Other greases, too. Hopefully Paralives gets some more convincingly metallic siding options at some point, because I wanted a horizontal corrugation but couldn't get there without things looking like painted wood (as with the marquee).

At around $20,000, this abandoned luncheonette is probably worth less than the land it sits on. Still, it's more of a shelter than a tent or cardboard box, and for the nostalgic or para into urbex, there are few better places to take a seat, sip imaginary cola, and draw faces in the dust.