Comfort food, served with side of nostalgia

(Corrected, Jan. 30)
Another national restaurant company has set its sights on Rhode Island, bypassing Boston.
5 & Diner is de-scribed as an authentic, ’50s-style diner-restaurant concept. The company, which moved its headquarters from Arizona to Maynard, Mass., has identified Providence as a key market in its franchising growth strategy. The chain started in 1989 as a one-store concept in Phoenix. Its look and menu are right out of “Happy Days,” complete with neon signs and burger platters.
With comfort food as the go-to cuisine these days, the idea of an all-American diner that serves breakfast and lunch with a side of nostalgia has much to recommend it. “It’s an exciting time for 5 & Diner as we build on the success of the brand and increase momentum towards our national expansion goals,” said CEO Bob Watson, a franchisee who bought the company with his wife, Laurie Watson, in 2008. “To ensure a long, happy partnership, we make certain our franchise partners meet stringent criteria and share our values.”
Those values include patience. The franchisee proceeding requires an investment of time, as well as capital. The Watsons insist on prospective franchisees visiting existing diners, as well as the Maynard base of operations and support center.
Among other hard-and-fast rules, 5 & Diner restaurants serve no alcohol. Existing operators enthuse about the spirit of the decade of the ’50s the diner conveys with its chrome lights, juke box, jump ropes and open seating, along with on-site events like sock hops and classic car shows.
Popular dishes on the menu include Mrs. Cleaver’s Pot Roast, the Big Bopper Burger, Cadillac Meatloaf and proprietary recipes for malts and shakes. 5 & Diner has 12 locations in five states: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma and Worcester, Mass. BACK TO THE FUTURE
One of the food trends forecast for 2012 is for chefs to follow classic, even historic recipes and menus. Johnson & Wales University has developed a virtual foodie time machine that is, well, just in time. Beginning in 2009, the Providence campus of the university started digitizing an extensive restaurant-menu collection, including more than 7,000 menus from around the world. By digitizing this historic collection, not only will the menus be preserved but the collection is fully searchable and accessible online.
The majority of the collection was donated to the Johnson & Wales University Library by the National Restaurant Association. Many of the menus featured were part of the NRA’s menu-design contests in the 1980s and 1990s. Other menus in the archive are from the menu collection compiled and owned by archivist Marilyn B. Feingold. These were previously accessible through the university’s online catalog.
It is fascinating reading to peruse a menu from Henrici’s restaurant in Chicago, celebrating its 90th anniversary in 1958 by serving a “New York Count” dozen oysters for 50 cents – raw, stewed or fried. It was great fun to look over and remember the menu of Café In The Barn in Seekonk, one of this area’s premier fine-dining restaurants during the 1970’s. A young chef, John Elkhay, was in the kitchen turning out Escargots A La Mistral, “sautéed with mushrooms and cognac in a tomato cream sauce with Pernod,” and Filet Mignon Café Style, “grilled with seasonings and crowned with the café’s garlic cheese butter.” The tab for the filet was $12; the escargot, $3.50. Your host was one Guy Abelson. But the archives are not just a history lesson.
Adesso California Café, which according to a recent announcement is planning to reopen on the East Side within the next month, was one of the first restaurants in Providence to serve so-called “modern cuisine.” The movement was influenced by the emerging tastes from California in the ’70s and ’80s. On Adesso’s menu from the JWU collection, the restaurant featured wood-oven pizzas topped with duck sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, spinach garlic and sage for $7.50. The price would suggest sometime in the early 80’s, although the menu itself is not dated. That pizza would be a big seller today. The archive’s Web address is ScholarsArchive.jwu.edu.
OPENINGS
New restaurants continue to open all around the state. Cilantro Mexican Grill is refurbishing a closed Starbucks near the airport in Warwick. The former Trish’s Tropi-Grille in Jamestown has been made over into Jamestown Fish. Owned by restaurateurs John and Cathy Recca, the restaurant opened its doors just before New Year’s. The executive chef is Matthew McCartney.
FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL

A new food and wine festival to be held during the Rhode Island Flower Show Feb. 23-26 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. A number of chef demonstrations with regional and local restaurants and caterers will be featured with accompanying wine tastings.
Headlining the brigade of chefs will be nationally known cookbook author and local favorite Sara Moulton, author Dwayne Ridgaway of the former Grill 262, now Bacaro in Providence; Derek Wagner of Nicks on Broadway; Kait Roberts and Jeremy Ewing Chow of Fine Catering by Russell Morin and Frank Terranova of Johnson & Wales University, which is a festival sponsor

Correction to the food and wine festival on chef line-up.


Bruce Newbury’s food and wine talk radio show is heard Saturdays and Sundays locally on WPRV-AM 790, on radio throughout New England and on the Stitcher mobile application. He can be reached by email at
Bruce@BruceNewbury.com.

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