Everyone has a favorite diner, especially in New Jersey. My kids love the free lollipops at Maplewood's Park Wood Diner, while my girlfriend Annie and I dig the big salads and onion rings at Park West in Little Falls. My parents order their egg white omelets at Pilgrim Diner in Cedar Grove, while my brother's kids get free soup at Princess Maria Diner in Wall.

There are approximately 525 diners in all of New Jersey, from Abbie's Diner in Wyckoff to Zikos Diner in Pleasantville, but the odd thing is how similar they all are, as if there were an Unwritten Code of New Jersey Diners (UCNJD). If such guidelines existed, here's what they might look like.

1. Variety

A diner must be able to make basic foods well, like club sandwiches, eggs, burgers, simple salads, mashed potatoes, tuna fish, and pancakes. But it also must offer every conceivable dish under the sun, from moussaka to pastrami reubens. It doesn't matter if 99 percent of ordered items come from 1 percent of the menu; a diner must always be ready for the customer who doesn't realize he could get a better Penne a la Vodka almost anywhere else. 2. Menus

A diner menu, the U.N. of restaurant menus, must be no smaller than a car windshield cover, and laminated for guaranteed protection through the year 2050. Handwritten "specials" may be clipped to menu, but they must contain grammatical errors involving misused apostrophes: meatball's, dinner roll's, chicken finger's, etc.

The diner must also have a separate kids' menu, preferably doubling as a colorable placemat (the diner must also offer broken and unwashable crayons). This kids' menu must offer spaghetti, grilled cheese sandwiches, hamburgers, and some sort of chicken formation which is 83 percent fried batter, 15 percent thoroughly-processed chicken and 2 percent something else entirely.

3. Wait Staff

Diner waitresses and waiters have to be courteous, but not overbearing, with a touch of attitude at no additional cost. They should also be qualified to steer you in the right direction. For example, a man sitting next to me at an unnamed Maplewood diner counter once told the waitress he wanted a slice of the grey-looking lemon meringue pie in the display case.

The waitress said, "No you don't."

"I don't?"

"No you don't."

UCNJD Rule of Thumb:

When a diner waitress says you DON'T want something, even if you do, trust her without hesitation.

4. Food Displays

The refrigerated display case usually behind the counter must be stocked with several 16-layer cakes and deep dish pies, but also many food items you can't imagine people ever ordering, such as tapioca pudding, pineapple topping, green Jell-O, and Oreo cheesecake. Where these foods go or where they come from is like asking how socks get lost in the dryer or wire hangers mysteriously multiply in our closets. It just happens.



5. The Check

The UCNJD stipulates that the check should be handwritten and illegible, especially to someone wanting to know if he was charged for that extra Diet Coke. It should contain a math mistake corrected with a huge slashe or overwritten numbers. The back of the check can have no more than two of the following three features: a first name, a goodbye greeting, and a smiley face. Use of all three should be reported immediately to the UCNJD protocol crimes division.

Despite all these commonalities, we each cling to our favorite diner as if it were somehow outstanding. And it is, really. It's the one closest to home, and it's the one we call our own. It's the one in which we run into friends and colleagues. It's the one in which we're called "honey," and in which managers say "how are you?" and mean it.

And I'll compare my hometown diner's egg's, toast's, and potato's to anyone else's, any time.