Georgie’s Diner

A Haven For Diner Fans
Georgie’s Diner, West Haven
August 2010

2019: This page is pretty bad and I’ll need to revisit Georgie’s someday to redo it.

I took this day off from work many months in advance. There was a museum to get to only open on Wednesday afternoons and a once-per-year museum in Hamden. I made a chock-full day of it, hitting a ton of stuff in New Haven and other nearby environs. What better way to start a full day of CTMQ’ing? With a filling breakfast from a classic American diner?

So I hit Georgie’s Diner in West Haven. It’s only a few minutes off of I-95 and has been newly remodeled, so everything is shiny and new (-looking, at least). I took a seat at the “bar” and was greeted with a smile and a coffee. The griddle was mere feet in front of me and the chatter in the small restaurant was lively. I ordered a simple meal (2 eggs over medium with homefries, turkey sausage and toast) and it was prepared in front of me in about 4 minutes.

It was perfect. The coffee tasted a bit metallic, however.

I’d love to provide more insight into Georgie’s, but their site is in Flash and doesn’t allow me to copy and paste their “About Us” info, so you’ll get the highlights… It was built in 1956 in New Rochelle, NY. It “lived” in Stratford, CT for ten years as the Duchess Diner. It was moved to West Haven in ’67 and named the Elm Diner. Then some dude named George took over until the late 80’s and his name lives on today.

The place fell to crap in the mid to late 90’s and almost was destroyed, but fortunately it was restored (amazingly, I might add) and that’s how I came to eat some eggs here in 2010.

Two completely dichotomous things about Georgie’s:

One, they actually care about the vegetarian and vegan customers, providing many options for both. They proudly note their fries are vegan and they don’t use animal fat in any preparations. They also offer a gluten free menu. This is extremely rare for a diner.

And two, they are very proud of their ground beef. They get it from some guy named Pat LaFrieda. This is where Peter Luger gets his ground beef. I looked them up and gagged a little when reading about their meat: “Our renowned chopped beef program has been perfected over three generations. Our original recipe has changed little in ninety years. We only use whole domestic muscles to include chucks, clods, and brisket. Our process is as important as our ingredients. We use a low pressure chopper machine and produce in only small batches. This keeps the meat coarse and avoids the meat from getting “overworked” and crushed.”

Gross.

Georgie’s Diner
CTMQ’s Classic Diners & True Taverns