Retro night-owl spot

  FleetwoodDiner on Cedar St. looks like one of those Airstream trailers from the1950’s with rounded edges, a low profile and a glinting chrome exterior. 
In reality the atmosphere is much more nuanced (thankfully) than that.  Fleetwood is the kind of place a novelist might visit for character research, especially after midnight.

The retro exterior is reinforced insidewith a black and white checkered floor, bold, lipstick-red bench seatsand chairs, and even more chrome.  Stoolsline a breakfast counter where eggs any way you like them are available24 hours a day, cracked, fried and flipped on a grill in full view ofdiners — no walls separate Fleetwood’s cooking space.

A couple of big screen TVs are mountedin juxtaposition to vintage Coca Cola, Texaco and Black Cowadvertisements lining the walls.  Cylindrical containers with enough sugar to choke a horse join jelly packets, hot sauce and other condiments on each table.  

The sugar, we assumed, was for coffeedrinkers, and for them Fleetwood is a haven: during our meal thewaitress — no-nonsense yet affable — must have topped our cups off ahalf dozen times.  The coffee tasted like standard supermarket-grade but it was fresh.

The menu offers breakfast, lunch, dinner and as much cholesterol as you might ever want.  It has a Greek influence so we started with the saganaki flaming cheese ($5.99).  Our server brought a piece of cheese on a hot plate to our table, lit it on fire, yelled (half-heartedly) “Opa!,” then extinguished the flame with a few squeezes of lemon.  A couple of warm, triangle slices of soft pita accompany the cheese.  Gooeyon top and crispy on the bottom, it’s everything you want from meltedcheese with a nice electric touch of acidity from the lemon on top.  

The Greek spirit wasn’t so strong in ourwaitress, but we supposed it might be difficult to be too festive asone of only two servers in the joint, bussing their own tables andfilling coffee cups left and right.  I nodded in agreement and sympathy when Mick Jagger started singing “Beast of Burden” on the radio.

The hippie hash is well known, so I went with it as a breakfast ($5.49) with over-easy eggs, which were cooked exactly that.  Thehippie hash is a medley of diced onion, tomato, broccoli, green pepperand mushroom over a bed of hash browns, all topped with a layer of fetacheese.  

It’s a fun, unique dish: the broccoliand green peppers kept some of their crispness; the potatoes were softin places, crunchy in others like they should be off the grill; and thefeta added just enough saltiness to bring everything together, alongwith a nice contrasting creamy texture.

My toast was so loaded with butter it looked like marmalade spread; next time I’ll ask for it on the side.  A side of bacon ($2.59) was more chewy than crispy.

My companion ordered a club sandwich ($5.99) which was a pleasant surprise.  The meat was sliced thick, and the lettuce was nice, too — big whole leaves, fresh, crinkly and crisp.  Not too much mayo (which can destroy some sandwiches) and the bread was toasted evenly and just enough to brown.
    Themenu proclaimed fresh-baked pie so I was looking forward to dessertuntil our server clarified that it’s not homemade, just baked here.Against my wiser self I went ahead with a slice of apple pie ($3.49).  There were slices of what was presumably apple in the pie, but my taste buds would not be able to confirm that.  Therewas a nice touch of cinnamon, but the crust was over-cooked and thecanned whipped cream added little other than a wet spot.

Fleetwood is a mixed bag — part retro, part ethnic Greek, part greasy spoon, but all-American.  And not all-American in that sanitized, captain of the football team and prom queen kind of way I initially imagined.  

Fleetwood is more the kind of placewhere hard work begins its day with a plate of bacon and eggs, wherenight-owl misanthropes nurse a cup of coffee for hours, or where oldfriends realize more days have passed than lay ahead over a slice ofcherry pie.