After 76 Years, Tastee Diner Still Hits the Spot

It's the only place in Bethesda you can order both chocolate chip pancakes and a cheeseburger.

On a Wednesday evening, Christina Wall, 30, of Greenbelt, and Andy Reid, 26, of Great Falls, Va. are satisfying both her breakfast and his red meat craving on the same side of a booth at Tastee Diner.

"Did everything hit the spot?" their server, Mike Russell, asks them.

"Perfect,” Wall says.

of Bethesda on Woodmont Avenue has been as such for loyal customers since 1935, withstanding both a fire in 2002 that closed it for two months and the community's shift to becoming a world-class restaurant town. To patrons, it is a bastion of cheap, chain-free food amid city blocks of oysters, tapas and cloth napkins.

While there are two other locations in Silver Spring and Laurel — each open for more than 50 years — Bethesda is considered the flagship location, said Frank Long, the manager who has been at the diner for 12 years.

"It's iconic by American standards," Long said.

The tables are imitation marble, with maroon leather-seated booths and matching stools at the counter. The tiles are brick red, black and ivory, giving off a '70s feel. It's narrow, like being a in a trailer, with a curved white ceiling. Photos of smiling customers and autographed portraits of local politicians adorn the walls. Walking in, you can hear the sizzle of eggs on the stovetop.

Each table sports a miniature jukebox with such famed numbers as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" listed next to "Shape of My Heart" by the Backstreet Boys. Tables take turns, crossing decades and genres: One group will play Cher; the next minute, it’s the twang of Alan Jackson.

That sort of all-are-welcome mentality extends to the clientele, which Long calls "generational." Parents bring their children, who bring their children. High school kids come after football games for thick, nearly all-ice cream milkshakes. Families with toddlers come for lunch. And Long says between 3 and 5 a.m., there can be up to three Elvis impersonator sightings.

"It's just a huge potential pool," he says. "I have a recurring nightmare that some morning, everyone's gonna wake up and say, 'Let's go to the diner.'"

That pool also gets to know each other.

"They'll be on the way to their booth  — their usual, if it's available  — they'll say, 'Hey Tommy, hey Steve, how's your wife, how's your kids,'" Long says.

Conway Robinson, 78 and his wife, Martha, 86, sit across from each other at a booth on a Friday afternoon. She is eating minestrone soup; he has the veal with mashed potatoes, gravy on the side. (Mashed potatoes are under "vegetables" on the menu along with cole slaw, pickled beets and applesauce.)

The food's not what they mention first, though — it's the staff.

"It's my favorite place," Robinson says. "The people here are my favorite people."

They've been married for 52 years, and coming to the Diner every Sunday morning before church for more than 20. "Maybe closer to 30," he says.

On another night, another Sunday couple makes a rare Wednesday evening trip. They're young, cute, hipster. Both are architects.

Marco Devittorio, 25, of Rockville, says his mother used to bring him when he was younger.

Devittorio brings his girlfriend, Gisela Marquez, 26, here every Sunday morning after a trip to a nearby comic book store. He gets steak and eggs; she gets a BLT.

Wall and Reid, the pancakes and cheeseburger couple, first discovered the diner while wandering Bethesda at 4 a.m. a few months ago, seeking warmth and coffee. They also ordered hotcakes, simply because they didn't know what a hotcake was. (Just pancakes, they found.) And they keep coming back, they say, for the "dive-y" atmosphere.

Their server, Russell, wears gold aviator-framed glasses over his blue eyes. A dishcloth is tucked into his pants, a pack of Marlboro reds in his pocket.

He's 59 years old, living in Wheaton and has worked the overnight shift for six years now. Marquez and Devittorio say he's one of the best parts of the place.

He even has a business card, with his full name — Michael E. Russell — and the diner's address on it, and his own profile with his catch phrase on the back: "To [sic] good to go straight home. Hit the Spot. Ask for your server MICHAEL. Tues -Sat 8:00 p.m till ?"

Russell says the diner gets an eclectic mix of customers. But that mix is exactly what he — and all the loyal diners, it seems — loves about it.

 "We deal with the drunks, the kids, the homeless, and the wackos — we get 'em all," he says.

 "But the kids and the drunks," he adds, "they're very good kids, and very good drunks."

Tastee Diner is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at 7731 Woodmont Ave. in Bethesda.