PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Long before McDonald’s and other quick-meal chains dominated the American culinary landscape, there was the diner.

Sometimes called America’s original fast-food restaurants, the squat eateries came in all shapes and sizes and often called out with pulsating neon lights, urging Americans to come on in for a quick, tasty meal in a homespun atmosphere.

“The diner has become such an icon of America, because really there aren’t any elsewhere,” said Richard J.S. Gutman, who has studied diners for 35 years and written books on the subject. “It’s something that is a good story about America, I think, because it represents hardworking people who are successful and not ostentatious, even though the buildings were.”

The diner’s place in American culture is explored in an exhibit at the Culinary Archives & Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, a city credited by experts as the birthplace of the diner.

Walter Scott parked his horse-drawn wagon in downtown Providence in 1872 and starting selling sandwiches, boiled eggs, pies and coffee. The exhibit dramatizes the diner’s rise and fall since then, and helps explain why it remains a fixture today.

Fifteen years after Scott, Sam Jones opened the first walk-in diner in Worcester, Mass.

The concept proved to be a hit; patrons craved the warm, inexpensive food, especially nightshift workers who had nowhere else to turn for a bite on their way home. People also took to the atmosphere. The diner’s cozy confines offered a place to discuss the news of the day. It was like a neighborhood bar with food. In an era when hygiene was an issue, customers could see their food cooked right in front of them.

One recent visitor, Paul Campbell, gazed lovingly at a replica lunch counter with 1950s-era red stools perched on stainless steel poles. “You know what I miss more than anything?” he said. “The stools.”

They reminded him of a drugstore in Providence, where he’d sidle up to the counter as a 12-year-old, plunk a dime or 15 cents on the counter, and order a chocolate float, he said.

“It gives me a feeling of nostalgia,” said Campbell, who now lives in Warwick.

The exhibit also includes a video Gutman shot in 1995 at Buddy’s Truck Stop, a 20-seat joint in Somerville, Mass., that’s still in business. Patrons joke easily with one other, and the owner tells a customer, “Never trust a skinny cook.”

There’s also a cashier counter from Corriveau’s Diner, in Laconia, N.H. The surface is heavily scratched by the multitude of coins that passed from customer to cashier. The Ever Ready Diner, a 15-stool Providence landmark that closed in 1989 after 63 years, is on display, as are pictures of eateries across the country.

Diners boomed after World War II, when many returning GIs opened their own restaurants. By 1952, according to Gutman, there were about 6,000 diners from Maine to California. They served newly prosperous Americans who traveled frequently for business. The restaurants were featured in advertisements in trendy magazines, Gutman said. It was the place to go to be part of the local scene.

They even spawned a lingo all their own. Patrons would ask for “city juice” (water), “bales of hay” (shredded wheat), and “yum yum” (sugar).

But their heyday was short-lived. Hamburger chains like McDonald’s soon lured away the cheap-eats crowd. In the 1960s, owners radically changed the restaurants’ look in a bid to retain customers. One popular design was a spaceship-like construction that included large windows and stainless steel trim.

“They didn’t look like diners but family restaurants,” Gutman said.

Still, the concept persevered. Today, Gutman said there about 2,200 to 2,300 diners in the United States. Most are in the Northeast, but travelers can still find diners in almost every state, said Gutman, who estimates he’s been to at least 800 himself.

He thinks there’s been a resurgence over the past 25 years. There are companies that still build the classic diner with the gleaming, stainless steel look, and others that renovate them. They’re in films. Many serve regional fare to appeal to local tastes. And the prices and camaraderie generally can’t be beat. Gutman thinks they’ve become an American institution, right up there with baseball and apple pie.

“They’re here to stay,” he said.

AP-ES-06-04-05 1234EDT