Andy's Diner, Cambridge (2030 Mass Ave)

Ok, so Andy’s Diner.

I’ve written about Andy’s here, here, and here for example, but they deserve their own thread. Soon that stretch of Mass will also be gentrified and they’ll be gone. Gather ye the rosebuds of their food while ye may – noting that these rosebuds are a bit iffy at times.

But, the unpretentious atmosphere, the chef/cook and waitress who’ve been there 20 years, the prices, the food that’s usually decent and sometimes soars – really there are few others left that match them.

I had their Thursday special, the boiled dinner, again last night. Again, excellent. The price has now surged to $15, but it still easily feeds two. (We had a fancier corned beef dinner from a fancier place a few days earlier and it was priced at $75 for two. The corned beef was rubber, and the carrots so fashionably al dente that I could only nibble their edges. Yes there was soup and nice bread with fancy butter and dessert, but still.)

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I suffer from nostalgia of what never was (ie, stalwarts that have come and gone that I never visited). Andy’s is one of those places. Chowhounders sufficiently scared me away. But nothing beats personal experience. And I don’t scare easily, so what is my problem?!

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Get there while ye can @digga, on a Thursday if possible and have the veggies in their boiled dinner. Otherwise breakfast.

I hope you, and everyone else here, understand(s) that my rec is not for food alone (although some of it is very good), but for the whole, sadly vanishing package.

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Got it. Thanks for the post. I’ve gone past Andy’s countless times over decades, and never considered it. Our son loves diners and it will be breakfast for us. Prices have surged everywhere for reasons that are entirely understandable to me. My college dorm was not that far away way, way back then, but back then I had almost no disposable income.

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