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Reader JML shoots us a picture of Willie’s Diner, rising again in Bloomfield Center. It was torn down last fall for structural issues and is being rebuilt. Looks like we’ll be having a short stack there by summer.

29 replies on “Willie’s Rising”

  1. Perhaps you can dine to the soundtrack of The Sweet singing “Little Willie,” even. Though that looks like a big, pointy one rising behind the diner.

  2. Debra,
    Your headline for this piece would bring a lot of giggles in the UK. Or did you plan it that way (with the wonderfully symbolic church steeple in the background)?
    (I must be lost in the gutter today, I guess…)

  3. When i saw the headline, I honestly thought it was going to be a post about William Jefferson Clinton.

  9. I tried to make Willie’s P (that was our name for it I don’t know why) my diner of choice last year. We went and had a waiter who we were pretty sure was on drugs and could never get anything right. We had him a few times and he thought we were his friends (but he sucked at being a server). Then once we sat in the smoking section to get away from him. He even came over and questioned why we smoked and he told us he was disappointed in us for being smokers (pretend smokers). So the next time we went we sat in his section because we felt bad about previous time; he messed up more than he ever did before, (I think this is the first time we realized he was high). So when the manager at the register asked how everything was we told him that we didn’t like the service and everything else that was wrong. The waiter looked like we has just stabbed him in the back because to him, we were his new best friends. And then the next week they tore the place down. Good times good times.

  16. “MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
    All the sweet, green icing flowing down
    Someone left the cake out in the rain
    I don’t think that I can take it
    ‘Cause it took so long to bake it
    And I’ll never have that recipe again”
    webb
    The time for “disco” fries have passed.

  17. When I worked at the newspaper next door, we had a couple of windows that overlooked Willie’s trash bin.
    We ate there somethimes, anyway!
    In fact, we still MISS their cheesecake.

  19. Miss Martta – Disco fries are fries smothered in gravy and (usually) mozarella cheese.
    I like Park Diner, or Nutley Diner or whatever the hell it’s called now. It has the least offensive design of the many diners I’ve been too. The silverware is also always clean.

  20. “Miss Martta – Disco fries are fries smothered in gravy and (usually) mozarella cheese.”
    Sounds very “Philly” to me. My dad’s family was from the South Jersey-Philly area and they always put gravy on their fries, never catsup.

  21. When we used to order them at Eagans on the Belleville Pike in North Arlington, they were “frenchy gravy”. No cheese. No disco.

  23. “So momma, if you please, pass me the pork roll egg and cheese/If you please, on a kaiser bun”—from Ween’s “The Pod.”

  25. C’mon, all seasoned diner patrons know that disco fries have melted cheese and brown gravy. jersey folks should know this.

  26. But here’s a question… what local diners know what you want when you ask for a chocolate egg cream? My general experience with that in Jersey diners has been getting a blank stare. The older waitresses usually know, though. The younger ones – no clue.

  28. True Story: I knew a guy who hated the French, he always let us know this and one time he told us “I hate the French, that’s why I’m eating Freedom Fries.” Then my friend said “Yeah, I hate disco, that’s why I’m eating rock & roll fries!”

  29. Thank goodness its coming back. I am so hungry I can almost taste their food. We haven’t had a good diner to go to after Rocky Horro in a long time now. Willies was sorely missed. I hope they bring back some of their waitstaff – Betty was our favorite.

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