Early morning, winter, a diner in the city.
“Cold out there,” says an elderly man, sitting down on a stool.
“Sure is,” says a younger man, already seated and drinking coffee.
“So cold that you still got to wear your hat inside?” asks the older man.
“My family’s always had cold heads,” says the younger man. “Mostly ears.”
“Ears are tough,” says the older man. “Maybe you should try to wear some muffs too.”
“Then I couldn’t hear you talk,” says the younger man.
It continued, this particular conversation, for a few more minutes at the Edgebrook Coffee Shop & Diner one day in January. It was not, considering the troubles afflicting this planet, a particularly weighty conversation. But given that people hardly talk to each other face-to-face (if at all) any more, perhaps it was an essential conversation.
The Edgebrook Coffee Shop & Diner has been around since the 1950s at 6322 N. Central Ave. It is the sort of place-and there are a surprising number like it around the area-where people still connect in ways that remind of us of the world before e-mail and iPod.
This is one of the smaller ones, only 20 seats at the counter and no tables. (In Osgood’s photo is manager Dimitri Kapetan, whose wife, Christina, has owned the place for seven years, framed by Julie Gilchrist and her son Gus Kuhnen). But the turnover is quick, and though many of the customers appear to be regulars, strangers are made to feel immediately welcome.
It would take many, many visits to sample the whole menu, but we can vouch for the hash browns, eggs (scrambled or over easy) and homemade biscuits. One person we talked to mentioned a chorizo omelette. Though she thinks it is only available on Saturdays (the place is open until 2 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Monday-Friday and closed Sunday), she calls it “the best meal in town.”
This woman is a regular at the diner, and it occurred to us that everybody deserves to be a “regular” somewhere, to have a place that, when you leave, someone will say, “See you tomorrow,” and allow you to walk home wrapped in that quietly comforting thought.
