Link to Monday's Four Bites Show: 'Are diners dead?'

Kevin Thurston and Roy Bakos, Cafe Godot owners and restaurant veterans, join me to hash out what our children’s diners will look like

Roy Bakos, left, and Kevin Thurston, restaurant veterans who owned Cafe Godot, will help me hash this out

“Are diners dead?” The answer depends on what sort of restaurant you mean by “diner.” Buffalo’s 24-hour restaurants are almost extinct, rare as albino bucks.

Places we loved because of the people who made our daily bread can only last as long as the people do. Jagat Seth and his brother Jai Raj made a $.99 eggs, homefries, and toast meal at JJ’s Cafe the best part of so many Buffalo days.

Jagat Seth made breakfast an event at JJ’s Cafe.

Places busy feeding their neighbors eggs, potatoes, and toast yet persist, though with a much thinner toehold on economic security.

Will our children be able to turn to diners to meet their chocolate chip pancake needs? Or will the only affordable breakfast be made by robots and ordered via screen swipe?

There’s at least two other people who think diners are worth talking about.

Kevin Thurston and Roy Bakos, restaurant veterans and partners in the late Cafe Godot, will join me at 7 p.m. Jan. 22 to chew it over, hash it out like we were two carafes deep, Perkins full-test .

If you care to talk about diners you’ve known and where you get that diner feel today, join us, or send questions and comments you’d like put to guests to me, at andrew@fourbites.net.

Here’s the link to click at 7 p.m. Monday to join the show.

More about our interlocutors:

Kevin Thurston: General manager and chef, Tipico. Chef-owner Cafe Godot, 2020-2023 with Bakos. Previously cooked at The Little Club, was a pickler and packer, Barrel + Brine, and other culinary activities.

Roy Bakos: Sold and managed the selling of alcohol and food for three decades, from The Montana Room above The Steer, Blu, Osaka, O, Pearl Street Brewery, Buffalo Distilling Company, and many more. Owner, Cafe Godot. Also taught college students at Niagara County Community College, Niagara Falls Culinary Institute, Buffalo State College, and University at Buffalo.

Currently teaching at the latter two institutions, he notes: “This is the first time in four decades that I haven’t had a job in hospitality.”

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