At first glance the menus may look familiar, with colorful laminated pages filled with classic comfort food, but Roseanne Vanikiotis wants the Hudson Valley to understand that diner fare has kept up with the times.
“We’re still the place to grab a burger and a shake, but these days it’s Kobe beef and locally sourced ice cream,” she says. “Latte instead of regular coffee? We’ve got you. We’ve been doing this 42 years, seven days a week. My brother-in-law graduated from the CIA, and he, my husband Teddy and my nephew Nick are all obsessed. They inspect every piece of lettuce that comes into the kitchen. Everything has to be the freshest and best.”
Her family business, the Vanikiotis Group, owns the Red Line Diner in Fishkill and the Daily Planet in LaGrangeville. Vanikiotis—who cherishes the memory of customers knitting baby gifts for her daughter 37 years ago—passionately agrees with a letter to the editor in New York magazine in 2017 in which a placemaking expert called diners an “invaluable third place” that transcend every known divide.
“You’ll have a table of people in PJs and flip flops next to one fresh from a black tie wedding next to the regular who’s asked for Karen’s section because Karen knows they don’t want their OJ chilled and they want to ask how her sister’s doing,” she says. “It’s just a completely different dynamic from a regular restaurant.”
Red Line Diner
Daily Planet Diner
This article appears in May 2024.
