American City Diner: The perfect place for nostalgia

Far removed from the hustle and bustle of downtown D.C., the American City Diner is nestled among the suburban estates in Friendship Heights — the perfect place for a diner decked out with 1950s iconography.

A 15-minute walk from the Metro station, coin-operated kiddie horse rides grace the diner’s entrance, as does an image of Marilyn Monroe. Inside, the kitchen is in full view, below signs with kitschy phrases such as “Don’t aggravate the cook!”

Jeffrey Gildenhorn, the former chairman of the D.C. boxing commission who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1998, opened the diner in 1989 as a re-creation of the traditional 24-hour roadside-wagon fare of his childhood, and its very existence is enough to bring back images of “Leave It To Beaver.”

The booths have their own jukeboxes with doo-wop and oldies standards from The Platters, The Drifters, Sam Cooke and The Shangri-Las, among others. There are arcade games and pick-em-up claws for the children to play while the adults talk, just like in the sitcoms of yesteryear.

The biggest draw is the diner’s movie screen, a 32-person-capacity theater that shows classic films every night at 8:30 p.m., free of charge. The Hill was not there for the screening, but that night’s feature was Brigitte Bardot’s “Plucking the Daisy,” a sex romp from 1956 in which Bardot plays a stripper. On tap is Gregory Peck’s “Cape Fear,” made in 1961, and the famous Marilyn Monroe movie “The Seven Year Itch,” originally released in 1955.

As with any diner, the food can sometimes be forgotten amid all the nostalgia, but the American City doesn’t disappoint. The menu contains typical diner food: Breakfast foods like pancakes, waffles and eggs are served all day and night, along with burgers, salads and sandwiches. Its burgers are fresh and the one I had was delicious. The fries were crisp and salted just right.

Portions are perfectly sized so as to leave room for dessert, and here is where the diner shines its brightest. The milkshakes are heavenly: three large scoops of ice cream, blended and served cold in a steel cup with a long spoon. My vanilla one was creamy and refreshing.

The service was quick and worthy of compliment, though the place was quiet late in the afternoon, too late for the lunch crowd and too early for the dinner rush. Prices are reasonable; dinner and dessert won’t cost more than $20.

If kitsch is your fancy and the later years of the Eisenhower administration sound like a good time, the American City Diner is for you.