The Lau­rel Diner

Named for Connecticut’s state flower, the Lau­rel Din­er was estab­lished in 1949 and in 1997, local man Peter Homick, his younger broth­er Mark, and a third part­ner pur­chased the din­er.  The project quick­ly became a lit­tle more hands-on than the broth­ers had antic­i­pat­ed.  Peter grins.  “We had no for­mal train­ing as chefs.  It was on the job train­ing. We hired a few cooks and weren’t sat­is­fied with the way they were doing things so we did it ourselves.”

The Homicks bought out the third part­ner in 1999 and Peter bought his broth­er out last year.  Along the way in 2008, local girl Stephanie Des­i­mone came back to town and began work at the Lau­rel.  “I came in for my first day, and when I went home, I told my sis­ter, ‘I am going to mar­ry that man someday.’”

Said sis­ter, Bian­ca, who is a pop­u­lar wait­ress at the Lau­rel now, smiles when she hears this.  “I said, ‘You’re crazy,’” but Stephanie knew what she was talk­ing about and the two were mar­ried in 2010.   They pre­side over the enor­mous grid­dle, the red Formi­ca table­tops, the white­board walls and hand-writ­ten menus with obvi­ous pride and joy in each other’s company.

Along­side a great entre­pre­neur­ial achieve­ment and a love sto­ry, though, is the pas­sion the two Homicks bring to the food on offer at the Lau­rel Din­er.  It’s what brings our fam­i­ly in over and over through­out the sum­mer months.

Noth­ing here is pre-made.  Peter says proud­ly, “I do every­thing from scratch.  Everything’s made by hand.”  First off, there is not a hint of ques­tion­able veg­etable oil being bandied about.  But­ter is the name of the game at the Lau­rel, and its pure rich­ness flows through all our favourite dish­es.  First up, eggs any way you like them: my choice, two plump lit­tle guys fried and tucked into a hard roll with sausage and cheese, or sun­ny-side up with a sprin­kle of hot sauce (my husband’s favourite), or scram­bled in the famous “Ham-Scram,” or fold­ed gen­tly with onions, pep­pers, mush­rooms, you name it, in the dai­ly spe­cial omelettes.  Peter and his broth­er (who still helps out at busy times) go through an aston­ish­ing 150 dozen eggs a week!  They come from the local Doyle’s Dou­ble A Farm, a 70-year-old fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness in near­by Prospect, CT.

Then there’s the home­made corned-beef hash laced with fresh-chopped onions, pota­toes and chives – Peter sim­mers a 35-pound fresh brisket every two days to cov­er cus­tomers’ insa­tiable appetites for the dish.  Scooped up on a tri­an­gle of rye toast, it is crisp, hot, but­tery perfection.

My hus­band and moth­er in law are cof­fee devo­tees, not to say con­nois­seurs, and they can’t get enough of the Lau­rel Din­er’s brew.  You can buy the mugs to take home.  New every year.

Did I men­tion toast?  The Lau­rel goes through about 70 pounds of bread a week, from the famed JJ Cas­sone Bak­ery in Port Chester, NY.  Most pop­u­lar is the clas­sic white, but rye and whole wheat are close seconds.

If you’re lucky enough to be in South­bury late August through Octo­ber, order some­thing with toma­toes or pep­pers, because they come straight from Peter and Stephanie’s organ­ic gar­den.  What a treat.

Every­one has a favourite dish at the Lau­rel.  “Peter makes the best burg­ers ever,” Stephanie says. “They go down like but­ter, that’s all I can say.”  And she’s right: the next time we were in, I couldn’t resist one, and every bite was heav­en: crisp on the out­side, smooth and rich on the inside, and piled high with fried onions.

My daugh­ter tend­ed to the sweet­er dish­es when she was younger, like enor­mous choco­late-chip pan­cakes (she could nev­er eat the whole thing), hot cin­na­mon rolls, waf­fles with whipped cream and straw­ber­ries.  Now old­er and slight­ly less obsessed with sug­ar, she’s moved on to the clas­sic Reuben with its suc­cu­lent brisket or pas­tra­mi, sauer­kraut and Russ­ian dressing.

But no mat­ter what you order, do not leave the Lau­rel Din­er with­out try­ing the best side dish in the his­to­ry of the world: hashed-brown pota­toes.  Peter assured me they are just pota­toes, but I can’t believe him.  There is mag­ic in those mounds of crisp good­ness, gold­en-brown on the out­side but still creamy on the inside.  There isn’t a main dish they don’t complement.

In fact, it’s the hashed-brown pota­toes that bring in one enthu­si­as­tic local fam­i­ly.  Mom Lau­rie explains, “My hus­band came in one day and he knows I’m obsessed with hashed-browns, so we all came in.  I always order the same thing: two eggs over medi­um, bacon and hashed-browns, and they are amazing.”

Eldest son Ethan – who has come to the Din­er on the day I meet him for his 14^th-birth­day treat – orders French toast and home fries, while his younger broth­er Gray­den opts for a waf­fle and home fries.  Youngest sib­ling Simon copies his mom’s choice, but with just one egg.  “We come in all the time,” Lau­rie explains.  “The food is deli­cious, the ser­vice is incred­i­ble, and it’s family-friendly.”

It’s not an easy life to run the Lau­rel Din­er.  Par­ents of two lit­tle girls, Peter and Stephanie have to jug­gle the demands of fam­i­ly and the din­er.  “I sleep about five hours a night, get­ting in at 5:30 and leav­ing the din­er at 3,” Peter admits.  “But it’s great being your own boss, and our lit­tle girl loves it here on our days off, play­ing at the reg­is­ter and help­ing flip pan­cakes.”  They close the din­er for some well-earned R&R twice a year: two weeks in August/September and two in February/March.  And they’re closed on Mon­days, a fact our fam­i­ly has for­got­ten once or twice, to our intense disappointment.

“Peter looks at everybody’s face when they take their first bite,” Stephanie says proud­ly.  “He real­ly cares about mak­ing them hap­py with his food.  He should have been Italian!”

South­bury has been good to the Lau­rel Din­er.  “It’s a nice lit­tle town,” Peter explains.  “There are a lot of old-timers, locals, peo­ple from Her­itage Vil­lage.  I know a lot of peo­ple by name, what they eat.”  Stephanie chimes in, “Most peo­ple order the same thing to eat and drink and we just need to know their names to put them on their tick­ets and Peter will know what to cook.”

“Are you plan­ning to stay open a long time?” I ask anx­ious­ly, and Peter assures me, “Oh, yeah, we plan to stay for­ev­er.”  Which is just about long enough to eat up all the corned-beef hash I will need.