Where the listings come from
Business names, addresses, phone numbers and websites start from open geodata: the Overture Maps Foundation places dataset, which includes Foursquare OS Places and OpenStreetMap contributions. We keep classic American diners and family diners, 24-hour diners, retro and mid-century-style diners, Greek-American diners and diner-style breakfast spots with a counter; fast-food restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries without a diner menu, dinner theaters and catering-only kitchens are not listed here. We remove duplicates (the same name and street in the same city) and drop businesses that are reported closed or that asked to be removed.
A city gets its own page when it has at least two diners; towns with a single listing appear on their state page, so no page is built around one business.
What a listing shows
96% of listings have a phone number and 64% link to the business's own website. Opening hours appear only where the business or its owner has published them. We do not show ratings or reviews, and we do not copy text from other directories.
How features are marked
Retro is marked from the diner’s name and business category. Open 24 hours, pancakes, milkshakes and pie are marked from the name and category or when the diner’s own website names them; all-day breakfast is marked only from the diner’s own website — we read the site text with fixed word rules and check samples by hand. A diner without such words is left unmarked rather than guessed. A label tells you what the diner says about itself, not what is on the menu today; check the diner’s current menu and posted hours. These marks are applied by software — name rules, wording rules run over each business's own website, and an AI model that reads that website — not written by hand. A mark from a website is kept only when the wording is found on the page, so a business without a mark may still offer the service — call to check.
Corrections from owners
Owners can correct their listing for free — new hours, a changed phone number, a moved address, services they offer. Corrections are applied and the listing is marked "Updated by the owner" with the month. Owners can also ask for a listing to be removed, and the removal is permanent. Write to contact@dineratlas.com.
How lists are ordered
Top 10 lists and the order of each city page follow how complete a listing is — website, phone, hours, services — and whether the owner has checked it. No business can pay for a position.
How often it is updated
The directory is rebuilt from the current data every night, so owner corrections usually appear within a day. The underlying geodata is refreshed from new Overture releases.