Mo's Diner

Peyton lowered her gaze to the menu Gloria had handed out earlier. Lots of new-age comfort food. Prices high enough to milk the tourists, but not so high they’d drive the locals away. Gloria explained each entree in excruciating detail: who ran the farm where the ingredients were purchased, how the butter was made, when the lettuces were grown, where the livestock was butchered… Peyton focused for as long as she could, then let her attention wander to the restaurant itself.

She had expected to find typical diner kitsch: Formica countertops, quarter-gobbling jukeboxes, booths with cheap vinyl seats that stuck to your thighs and made embarrassing squishy noises when you slid inside. Instead she had been pleasantly surprised to discover a grand Victorian (painted a creamy shade of pink that should have been awful but was somehow perfect) with a white picket fence framing an outdoor patio. Clusters of blooming plants, mismatched chairs, and round tables topped with pretty pink linens were invitingly arranged between the house and the street.

Inside was a spacious foyer with a wooden podium which would serve as a hostess station. Four dining rooms fed off the foyer, each with its own marble fireplace, assorted antiques, outrageously healthy plants in handcrafted pottery, and lots of local landscape photography displayed in sleek metal frames. Witty wisdom (the sort usually plastered on the rear bumpers of Volvo station wagons) was scattered all around the restaurant: Dare to Believe! Truth is the daughter of time. Never miss a good opportunity to shut up. Peyton’s personal favorite hung over a doorway that led to the kitchen: If God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat.

All in all, it was an eclectic, homey mix— sort of like a hip grandmother lived there. The kind of place you wanted to sink into and stay for a long time.