For more than a hundred years diners have played an important role in New Jersey’s history as gathering places for a community.

Join speaker Michael Gabriele, author of “Stories from New Jersey Diners” (published in 2019 by The History Press) as he presents a program on his book, sharing stories he has documented about the “Diner Capital of the World.”  The heartfelt remembrances that Garbriele will share have shaped lives, families, careers, businesses, and communities, and comprise the “untold” stories of New Jersey’s history. 

Diner experiences—good food, slice-of-life encounters with friends and strangers, and the memories they inspire—all reflect the state’s spirit, culture and mythology. Many tales are snapshots of the immigrant experience—people who have traveled to New Jersey from far-away countries to gain a foothold as American citizens.

Stories in the book that Gabriel will share include memories of late-night eats during Wildwood’s wildrock-and-roll days of the 1950s; an entrepreneur who traveled eight-thousand miles from India and opened a diner in the Pine Barrens; first-person remembrances from Newark’s famous, long-gone Weequahic Diner; and a frantic, impromptu midnight wedding ceremony held in an Elizabeth lunch wagon in 1906.

Copies of the book will be available for sale. A lifelong Garden State resident, Gabriele has worked as a journalist, freelance writer and author for more than forty years.

His previous books are (in chronological order): “The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey;” “The History of Diners in New Jersey;” and “New Jersey Folk Revival Music—History and Tradition.”

This program is open to all and no registration is required.

It is made possible with the support of The Friends of the Livingston Public Library.