Our story
The diner began in Providence. So did ours.
Where the diner was invented
In 1872, Walter Scott noticed that downtown night-shift workers had nowhere to grab a quick meal on their break. So he parked a horse-drawn lunch wagon on Westminster Street in Providence and started selling food.
People called them lunch carts, night owls or nite lunches. The idea spread to Worcester and then up and down the East Coast. By the 1940s and 50s, the lunch wagon had grown into the full-service diner: a sit-down restaurant built in a factory and delivered by truck, usually parked wherever factory workers needed feeding.
Our diner car is one of those. It has now come back to Westminster Street, just a few blocks from where Walter Scott started it all.
A timeline
More than seventy years, five addresses of note and a lot of names.
The first lunch wagon
Walter Scott serves night workers from a wagon on Westminster Street, creating the template for the American diner.
Poirier’s Diner opens
Joseph and Mary Poirier buy a new Kullman car and open at 581 Atwells Avenue near Eagle Square in Olneyville, often around the clock for three factory shifts.
Many owners, many names
The Poiriers sell. Over the next 44 years the car becomes Armand’s, Squire’s, Arnold’s, the Top Hat, Krystal’s and El Faro.
The lights go out
The diner closes and is later slated for demolition as part of the Eagle Square redevelopment.
Saved and listed
West Side developer Jon Özbek buys the car to relocate it, and it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Moved to 1380 Westminster
The car arrives in the heart of the West Side for a careful restoration with the Providence Revolving Fund, the RI Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission and the National Park Service.
West Side Diner
Back in service, serving breakfast and lunch to the neighborhood, the city and visitors from all over.
Built for the mills
Olneyville in 1947 was ringed by manufacturing giants: General Electric, US Rubber, Uncas Manufacturing, the National & Providence Worsted Mills and Providence Steel & Iron among them. Poirier’s fed their workers, in many cases 24 hours a day.
- BuilderKullman Dining Car Company, Harrison, New Jersey
- StyleStreamline Art Deco
- MaterialsStainless steel, porcelain enamel and ribbed glass block
- RecognitionSecond Rhode Island diner individually listed on the National Register, after the Modern Diner in Pawtucket
- RarityOne of only two intact Kullman cars in the state
The names on the sign
If you grew up in Providence, you might know this car by one of these.
- Poirier’s
- Armand’s
- Squire’s
- Arnold’s
- Top Hat
- Krystal’s
- El Faro
- West Side Diner
Today the diner is run by local restaurateurs Michael Arena and David Penta, who carry on the tradition with the same idea Walter Scott had: good food, fast, for the people who keep the city running.