Miss America Diner, a Jersey City stalwart, to close on Monday, Nov. 3
New Jersey still has over 500 diners, but their lot is a dwindling one.
There she is, Miss America.
Until Monday, Nov. 3, that is, when the Miss America Diner in Jersey City will close.
If you’re looking to snag a red leather booth to disappear into or a counter stool to swivel on, come armed with a well-charged smartphone or the latest issue of the New Yorker (finally, a chance to finish it), as the lines have reportedly been long since news broke of the diner’s imminent demise.
(By the way, isn’t it always that way when a beloved place is closing? Regardless of its business model, a stalwart store suddenly becomes the bee’s knees when the death sentence is handed down. Food for thought.)
“It is with extreme sadness that we announce that the Miss America Diner will be closing its doors on Monday, November 3, 2025,” the operators of the Miss America Diner announced on Facebook, without giving a cause for the closure. “We will be open this Saturday and Sunday business as usual. We wish to thank our hardworking staff for their dedication and especially to our loyal customers.”
New Jersey is home to more than 500 diners, but the list of closures keeps growing. Of those that survive, NJ.com reports that only 16 are open 24 hours a day, meaning a once-common pleasure — wrestling with an unwieldy, laminated diner menu at the wee hours to conjure up seemingly anything that can be cooked to order in the world — has become unsettlingly elusive.
The Miss America Diner first appears in newspaper records under that name in June 1941, though the more common year listed for the West Side Avenue eatery's opening is 1942. 1940 is also bandied about. The story goes that Joe Cherico first named it after himself and then sold it to Frederick “Fritz” Welte, who had emigrated from Germany and blessed it with the star-spangled moniker in a grateful nod to the country that had taken him in. Welte retired in 1978 and died two years later.
This is Jerry O’Mahony- built diner, and the maker’s mark is right over the door – I got a kick out of pointing it out to a curious cashier when I was paying my bill. She’d never noticed it.
Right across the front door, and its handle, graced with a period typeface, is the elegant Art Deco Telechron wall clock, lording over the well-worn swing doors leading to the kitchen. Manufactured in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the Miss America never strayed far from her birthplace, unlike so many of her peripatetic kin.
I first visited the Miss America Diner in August, and found the food to be just what I had hoped – satisfying in that way a good Jersey diner ought to be. Something compelled me to overshoot the place with my camera – I had a gut feeling it might not be long for this world.
So here we are, and it is closing — gut feeling validated — but we also have encouraging news that another Jersey City staple will take it over: the Italian delicatessen Salumeria Ercolano. With that headline comes hope that the architectural qualities we so treasure about the Miss America Diner won’t be compromised, at least not too severely. That’s right, a sleek tower of condos for this sizable plot of earth is not on the drawing board, a rare act of civility and restraint of avarice that deserves applause.
A good example of what could happen here exists in East Elmhurst in nearby Queens, New York, where an outlet of the Jackson Hole burger chain peacefully coexists with the original signage and decor of the Air Line Diner.
In a way, we’ve been here before. The Miss America has changed hands many times, and its DNA has always survived changes in the owner’s name on the deed. Perhaps it will again.
Thanks for your service, Miss America. I salute you.
RELATED: One woman’s quest to save a Jersey Diner.
O'Mahony...pronounced like "the sound of a goat and the fruit of a bee" (mah-honey) according to Jerry.
Great story. Thanks