A distinct pleasure to join a group of fans like this.
We can share info.
We can do this in good cheer.
Keep up the good work.
-Mario Monti (1930-2016), May 26, 2001
On May 26, 2001, this was the first message published in a new Yahoo Group. Twenty-five years later, that has evolved into a Facebook page with over 1,300 followers. Today’s Facebook page remains true to the concept of that original Yahoo Group – a means to share news and information about diners and roadside attractions.
If you are young, 25 years seems like a long time; if you are old, not very long at all. Still, 25 years is long enough for significant changes to take place.
25 years ago, Internet access by the general public was still relatively new, and many accessed the Internet by dial-up modem. Film photography was still common. Not everyone had a cell phone, and those who did used them only for telephone calls. With social media still in the future, individuals with a common interest who could access the Internet often connected through message boards and e-mail.
And people got their diner news from Roadside Magazine, started in 1990 by Randy Garbin.
Roadside Magazine, published between 1990 and 2007, invited us to explore the back roads and Main Streets of America. The magazine shut down in 2001, reappeared under an alternate name By the Way, and regained the rights to its original name before ending for good in 2007.
The story of RoadsideFans begins where Roadside Magazine ended in 2001, after a new owner shut the magazine down after producing one glossy color issue (bottom of third column.) Stunned readers, who had come to depend on the magazine and its web site for roadside news updates, continued to post messages into a Yahoo e-mail group abandoned by the magazine.
I floated the suggestion that we start a new e-mail group that could share information about diners and other roadside places, much as Roadside Magazine had done. Soon, somebody posted, “Great idea, Glenn! Can you run it?” I have lost track of who that person was, but that was the spark that ignited RoadsideFans.
Several friends and e-mail acquaintances quickly joined RoadsideFans. Besides Mario Monti, Susan Levinson, Michael Engle, Kathy Stribley, Gregg Anderson, and Larry Cultrera were around in the early days of the group (and several are still around today.) Eventually the group would pass 1000 members.
Yahoo Groups logo from the time RoadsideFans was founded
After founding the e-mail group, I learned that the URL RoadsideFans.com was available, so I thought it would be a good idea to purchase it (and prevent anyone else from doing so.) For one thing, it was easier to tell people “RoadsideFans.com” to find the group instead of the long URL Yahoo provided. The first web site went live with the help of our son, Ray Milstrey, who was then a teenager with a growing interest in web site development. (He decided to make a career of it and is employed in the field today.)
The first RoadsideFans web site had a link to the RoadsideFans group and little else.
In the coming months I would add more content to that original sparse web site. When I attended a diner tour in Queens, NY hosted by Mario Monti on September 29, 2001 (barely a month after 9/11) I was determined to post photos of the event, even though I did not own a digital camera or scanner at the time. My photos were taken with a single use film camera, the film was processed with the option of online digital copies, and I was able to put up a web page within a week or so after the event, which I thought was pretty good. If an event like this were held today, undoubtedly several attendees would be using their phone to post pictures to social media while the event was happening.
I would add information to the web site that could not easily be found elsewhere on the Internet, such as a key to diner manufacturers, which later expanded into a series of Diner FAQs.
Some of my pages still come up high in search results. For example, do a Google search on “diner serial number” and you get this:
Google AI mines information I had posted years earlier.
I always had a fascination with Howard Johnson’s Restaurants, having watched those sparkling restaurants I visited as a child go into a long, slow decline. In 2002, I couldn’t find a page I liked about Howard Johnson’s, so I decided to write one myself. By this time I owned a scanner, allowing me to scan some film photos from a few years earlier. I even added a 1981 article about Lake George franchise owner Carl DeSantis, which was scanned and transcribed using optical character recognition.
In 2002 the RoadsideFans web site added a Howard Johnson’s page that attracted more attention than I expected.
Years after I posted the Howard Johnson’s page I was surprised to see it referenced in the end notes to the book Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman, published in 2016. Then in 2018 I received an email from Bob Greene, who was working on an op-ed piece about Howard Johnson’s. The finished article, which includes a couple of quotes from me, was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 27, 2018.
I joined Facebook in 2010, after many of my friends and RoadsideFans Group members already had. At the same time I established a Facebook page for RoadsideFans. In the beginning, the RoadsideFans Facebook page served the same purpose as the RoadsideFans web site did originally – provide a handy link to help people find the Yahoo Group. It wouldn’t be very long before that would change, however. I found it much easier to post links and photos into Facebook, where most of the active RoadsideFans saw them instantly. Activity increased in RoadsideFans on Facebook, while in the Yahoo Group it was way, way down.
I tried to hang on, posting occasional updates to keep people in the Yahoo Group informed, but the trend was clear. Over time, I could only identify two Yahoo Group regulars who were not also on Facebook. Ultimately, Yahoo Groups would shut down on December 15, 2020, at which point the original RoadsideFans platform was gone.
Meanwhile, the RoadsideFans web site underwent a major redesign at the end of 2011, a Christmas gift from our son Ray who had launched the original web site years earlier. The WordPress blog with a fresh look offered opportunities for expansion which mostly went unrealized. I always planned to work on it more “when I retire” – and never did. Any time I had fresh news or trip photos it was easier to post them into Facebook and leave it at that.
Because of that, I have come to a decision. Going forward, RoadsideFans will exist only on Facebook and RoadsideFans.com, the web site you are now reading, will go dark when the term on my domain name expires in June 2026. It was not an easy decision to make, but I cannot justify the expense of keeping it going when the web site is due for another major upgrade, one I cannot handle myself and don’t want to ask Ray to do. (He’s busy enough with his career and being the best girl Dad ever.)
Among the changes that happen in 25 years, a sad one is the people you lose along the way. Among those important to RoadsideFans, and me personally, are Mario and Lucille Monti, Linda Gottwald, John Shoaf, Wally Day, and Ron Dylewski. I never got to meet the last two in person, but the spirit of fellow road warriors continues to lift me.
Social media is routinely criticized as a societal ill, but I keep thinking of all the good friends I have made in the last quarter-century that I never would have met if not for the Internet. This includes people living a mere 15 minutes away, as Michael Engle did before I moved. And when RoadsideFans have the chance to meet in person, a good time is guaranteed, even if it’s two or more hours of driving to get there.
Glenn (standing) with the group at the first RoadsideFans Get-Together held at the original Stella’s Diner in Syracuse, NY, May 18, 2002. (Photo: Susan Levinson)
Nearly 21 years later, Glenn (third from left) attended a Pizza Hut meet-up in Tunkhannock, PA, April 22, 2023, organized by Rolando Pujol and Beth Lennon. (Photo: Cliff Hillis)
I’m hoping some of us might have the chance to meet, or meet again, in the not too distant future. Until then, remember I’m on Facebook every day.
Glenn Wells
RoadsideFan # 5501
May 26, 2026
