But yes, the waiter says at the counter, the meat loaf this particular Tuesday is grass-fed New Jersey beef, usually from Simply Grazin' Farm, in Skillman, although on occasion it's from a smaller supplier nearer to Medford.
And the mashed potatoes are from Roger Kumpel's farm about three miles down the road, potatoes the diner now goes through by the ton. But, no, the green beans aren't local, not now, because green beans don't grow in Jersey in the snow.
"When you deal with local," says co-owner Jimmy "Jersey Jimmy" Melissaratos, "they're more work. Customers will ask for peach pie. Well, you're not going to get that" in winter. "You'll get that in season, maybe for six weeks; that and blueberries. When that runs out you better like apples. . . . "
This would be unremarkable, if it were, say, a health-food cafe in Madison, Wis., or in Center City, or a diner on the order of Silk City Diner, the hip joint at Fifth and Spring Garden.
But in middle America, in the working-class precincts beyond the quaint boundaries of Vincentown itself - or anywhere else in Jersey diner country - frozen, canned, long-hauled, disconnected food is pretty much the norm. The irony of this in farm country was not lost long on Melissaratos, who shepherded the Vincentown Diner from its original stainless-steel dining car (bought by the family in 1969) to the 250-seat sprawl it is today: "I said, 'Wait a minute,' we're in a rural area. I'd get in my little Toyota Prius and go to the farms around here, building relationships. Then the next year they'd deliver to us directly. They're your neighbors, you know. Why should the [same] food be trucked 4,000 miles with $200-a-barrel oil?"
