Walk into Terry’s Diner and you know you are hearing something similar to what has probably been heard for the last 50 years: clanging plates, loud TV, the squeak of the swinging door and a steady murmur of conversation.

We found the owner and cook, Terry Holmes during a rare respite at the counter. Usually he can be found in the kitchen making all those all-American meals that can be found on every plate that goes out.

Cooking for 35 years, Holmes learned from the chefs working for his father, Terry Sr., who opened the diner in 1956. He admits he learned as a trial by fire that way, which is almost prophetic considering the original Terry’s burned down in 1999 after a horrific fire. Holmes and his wife decided to reopen and went to look at new diner cars being built in New Jersey, but found them to be too expensive.

“By chance, we came upon the Skyliner Diner, which had been in Dupont, and actually had been owned by my father’s sister,” Holmes said. After moving the diner, originally built in 1955, Terry’s reopened in 2000.

Like a typical diner, there are booths, tables, counter seating and the ever-Americana staple, a jukebox. Terry’s menu, which gets updated about once a year, boasts over 200 items from breakfast and wraps to full course dinners.

“The diner fare stays here, like the meatloaf, the liver and onions,” says Holmes, “We’re a diner, so we give people what they want, when they want it. If you want hot beef or liver and onions at 8 a.m., you get it. If you want oatmeal and hotcakes at 10 p.m., you get it. That’s kind of what a diner always was.”

It’s that flexibility that brings the regulars in. Holmes estimates that 90% of his clientele are repeat customers and he laughingly admits that if one came in the same time tomorrow, they’d see the same people.

Before getting back to his kitchen, Holmes takes a minute to wax philosophical about the recent influx of chain restaurants in NEPA, something he said we didn’t have 10-15 years ago.

“They didn’t think there was any money to be made here and then the flood gates opened,” he paused, adding, “The restaurant business is the only business that can compete when the giant chains move in. Mom and Pop owned electronics and hardware stores get run out when Wal-Mart or Lowe’s open up, but we restaurants can compete with service and prices.”

Originally published online here: http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/entertainment/16478149.htm