Lou's Diner

CLINTON — When Tom Turini was 10 years old, every Saturday he and his father Lou would go out for a ride, eventually stopping at a diner on the side of the road somewhere to get some lunch or a quick snack. One Saturday Lou pulled into a diner on the side of Route 13 called the Mayor’s Lunch, on the Lunenburg/Townsend town line.


“When we walked out of the diner my dad says to me, ‘I’m going to own that place,’” Tom recalls as he stands over a sink filled with soaking pots and pans from his latest catering job. “I used to think he was taking me on these rides as this bonding time between me and my father; turns out he was just looking for a diner to buy.”
Lou ended up buying the Mayor’s Lunch Diner and moved it to town on the back of a flatbed truck in 1967 and opened Lou’s Diner in 1968. Turini has been there ever since the doors first opened.


“I started here in 1968 and I was doing the exact same thing I’m doing right now,” Turini said, motioning to the pots and pans he is scrubbing. “Here it is 38 years later and I’m still at square one. I knew how much work it was and I wouldn’t abandon my dad. Next thing you know, one thing leads to another, and one year leads to another and now there are only two ways out of this business; either you’re dead or they shoot you.”

Slice of Americana
Lou’s still has the original “Ladies Welcome” sign painted next to the door. And while it seems strangely out of place in these politically correct times, Turini said it’s going to stay because it’s a rich part of the diner’s history.


“In all these years I’ve only had one complaint about it,” Turini said with a laugh. “Diners were set up in downtown areas to feed the guys working there. They put the “Ladies Welcome” sign on there because women were afraid to go into diners because it was a guy thing.”


Despite Clinton folklore that claims Lou’s Diner is an actual dining car from a train, that’s not the case. According to Turini, whose family has been in the diner business for 55 years, Turini’s Diner, which was located at the corner of Water and High streets and owned by Turini’s uncle Paul, was the abandoned railroad car.



What it’s all about
Lou’s Diner, along with The Old Timer Restaurant and P&S Pizza, is one of the oldest eating establishments in Clinton. Turini credits the loyalty of his customers as the reason why Lou’s has remained long after most other restaurants have closed their doors.


“Loyalty in business is hard to come by; it just isn’t there anymore,” Turini said. “It’s been interesting because you never know who is going to walk through that door. It could be somebody that you think is a nobody, but I’ll tell ya, the nobodies are the most interesting people in the world. It’s like being in a Disney movie with the cast of characters we have around here. We have had to fight every other food business that has come into town. I thought when McDonald’s opened up in 1972 that we were done, but we’re still here and we’re still selling hamburgers.”


And while the menu probably hasn’t changed much over the years, the layout of the diner is the same and his customer base is solid, Turini said the future of the diner is fluid and constantly in flux. He recently lost one of his suppliers, another in a long list. According to Turini, suppliers only want to deliver to places that can accept huge deliveries at a time.


Turini has also had to battle naysayers that want to see the diner dragged into the 21st century, but he said don’t expect to see that any time soon.


“There are certain guidelines to a diner,” Turini said, frustration creeping into his voice. “You’re not going to go into a diner and get a Cobb Salad; you’re going to get meatloaf, you’re going to get macaroni and cheese, you’re going to get pot roast. It’s a diner — it’s not Friendly’s.”


After Lou, who was the backbone of the diner for so many years, passed away in 2002, Turini said there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t think about getting out of the business.


“It’s 4:30 in the afternoon, the last place I want to be is back here washing pots, but that’s what I have to do to keep those doors open,” Turini said. “I’ve fought it for 20 years but now I’ve accepted my sentence and I’ve been sentenced to life… It’s tough to see your customers die off. These are people that I’ve been feeding for the last 40 years, sometimes twice a day. That’s started to get to me these last couple of years. These are people that I’ve been having coffee with for the last 40 years.”


But, there’s a reason why Turini has chosen to stick with the long days and back-breaking work; those rides he used to take with his father every Saturday when he was a kid and knowing that he’s keeping his father’s dream alive.


“This whole gig was his dream,” Turini said, taking a break from scrubbing pots. “That’s why I couldn’t abandon ship and see his dream go up in smoke. We used to fight like cats and dogs every day, but we never let that ruin our relationship.


Sometimes we’d get done doing a really hard catering job and we both just worked 10 or 12 hours and you did a good job and everything went well, we’d look at each other and we wouldn’t say a word but we both knew, ‘You know something? You did good today.’ That feeling is something you took home with you, not the money because the money is gone. That’s what this is all about.”




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LOU's Diner Celebrates 40 years!


Tom Turini began washing pots and pans at Lou's Diner when he was 13.

"I was just going to help my father for a couple of weeks," Turini said of Louis Turini, who opened the diner in 1968. "Here it is, 40 years later, and I'm still here."

Turini laughed as he reminisced about his father, who died in 2002.

"My father said, `Hey, just help me out for a few weeks,'" Turini recalled.

July marks the 40th anniversary of the diner.

"It's a time for me to reflect," Turini said. "I'll be reflecting more than celebrating. We must be doing something right. You can't run a restaurant for 40 years without giving people great food. You need quality and consistency every day. A lot of restaurants have come and gone in those 40 years, and we're still here. It's hard to keep a diner going. It's a lot of work. It's hard work. It's all work."

Turini worked with his brother Mike at one time and now runs the diner, along with Turini's Catering, with his son, also named Tom.


"I like working with my father and carrying on the family tradition," Tom Jr. said. "I've been coming in here since I was 8 years old."

"Working with my father was gratifying, rewarding and challanging" Tom Sr. said. "I had to raise Tom by myself after I was divorced and so I had to bring him to work with me. Tom basically grew up in the diner."

The diner was built by Worcester Lunch Car Co. in the 1930s. It features the classic diner design: long counter, viewable grill and booths. It spent time in Lunenburg and Townsend before Lou Turini brought it to Clinton in 1968.

"It was called the Mayor's Lunch when it was in Townsend," Tom Sr. said. "My father brought it here in 1968. He had run Turini's Diner on the corner of Water and High streets with my Uncle Babe. He left there in 1962, and began working at the cafeteria in the new high school, but he never lost his love for diners ."

Lou Turini was fond of taking his son out for a diner breakfast every Saturday. He would drive throughout Worcester County and beyond looking for new diners in which the two could enjoy a meal.

"I thought he was spending quality time with me, but he was just looking for a diner he could buy," Tom Sr. said, laughing. "One day, we walk out of the Mayor's Lunch and he says to me, `See that, one day I'm going to own it.' I thought he was nuts. But he had a dream, I guess. He thought working in a diner was the best thing in the world."

Tom Sr. did not share his father's enthusiasm at first. He wasn't taken in by the romanticized working class chic that embodied the diners of America.

"I didn't think it was very romantic," he said. "I fought it for 20 years. I thought a diner was an uncool place to be. I thought it was a pain to work in. I thought it was a burden. Over the last 20 years, I came to accept it."

Tom Sr. said it was the clientele that won him over.

"I enjoy people," he said. "I come in and I laugh and fool around and have a good time. The public can be trying, but that's part of the gig
People like to vent. They like to tell you how their day is going. You nod your head a lot at this job. This place is a nerve center for communication. People come in for something to eat, but also to get sports talk and political talk. They like to talk about whatever the agenda is for the day. It's just a nerve center for information. Whether that information is true, I don't know"

Tom Sr. said the demographics of the diner's clientele have changed over the past 40 years.

"Years ago, our base was truck drivers and factory workers," he said. "Back then things were a lot more regimented and there was an actual lunch hour. We used to get a hit from Colonial Press and hit from Ray-O-Vac. The factories aren't there anymore and there really isn't a lunch hour. People get lunch as early as 10. Some people get it at 2 in the afternoon. Lunch is whenever you can take it."

Tom Sr. said many customers are retired men who frequent the diner to meet with their friends.

"We do have the Ladies Welcome sign out front," he said. "That really hasn't done much to enhance the number of women who come in here. Actually, it may serve as a deterrent. Ladies do seem a little uncomfortable when they first walk in. Breaking the ice is a little difficult. Diners were always known as working-class men's places. That stereotype is hard to break."

However, Tom Sr. said once someone comes in for breakfast or lunch, they are sure to come back. "Once they walk in and have some decent food and hear a stranger talking about the Red Sox, it changes their perception. They'll come back the next day."

With the diner open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday through Friday and 6 to 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Tom Sr. has gotten to know a lot of town characters.

"We had Fox News in here filming this year," Tom Sr. said. "They had been filming their show from different diners and we were the fourth or fifth one on their list. I was afraid someone was going to drop a `bomb' - an f-bomb or an s-bomb, any one of those bombs. But, we got through it."

Turini Catering services are also available every day.

"I do a lot of funerals," he said. "You only get a day or two notice for those, so you have to be ready to go."

The catering service is also used for some community service.

"Tom always donates food to feed the FIRST students and their adult mentors," said Jannine Bevilaqua, who has served as the "Mother" of the Clinton High School. Bevilaqua coordinates the donations of dinners from local restaurants to keep the young engineers well fed as they prepare to do robotic battle in the international FIRST competitions. "Tom always puts on a huge spread. We can always count on them. I tell him how many people we have and he always gives us more so the kids can have extras. He does an excellent job and the kids really look forward to having his meals."

Tom Sr. still recalls the colorful wisdom his father imparted to him.

Tom Sr. said, "My father was the most hardcore, brutal, blatant ..."

" ...philosopher," said Tom Jr., finishing his line..

"Yeah, he was a philosopher," Tom Sr. said, "a philosopher who was brutal in his words."

"I'm following my father's footsteps," Tom Jr. said. "Just like he did for my grandfather, I came here to help out for a little while and now I've been here for two years full-time."

"It's like the Mafia," Tom Sr. told him. "There's only two ways out: Either you die, or we kill you."