June 23 – What is more American than a good cozy diner and ordering up “the usual” – which for me is home cooked comfort foods while sitting in a comfortable booth and watching the everyday happenings of a small town. In Highland, for the past thirty-six years, that meant going to Irene’s Eldred Diner where her motto is “no one leaves the table hungry!” Irene’s, as is known to the locals, checks all the boxes for a great diner and yes, there is a real Irene rattling the pots with her grill blazing away and cooking up a storm in the kitchen.

Irene Jakubowski and her husband Jessie moved to Eldred with their four kids and opened the Diner in March 1989 in a building that shared space with her husband’s garage. Over the years Irene carefully crafted a menu of favorites for her breakfast and lunch customers. I started frequenting Irene’s when I first moved to Highland some thirty years ago. While growing up in Boston I had many Polish friends and eating in their mother’s kitchens I learned to love their delicious traditional foods.

“Because of my heritage I always have some Polish foods on my menu” Irene told me and who doesn’t love freshly made pierogies with a dollop of sour cream or stuffed cabbage.” People are out there working hard and they gotta eat some good stick to your ribs food to keep them going.” The Jakubowski family knew this from their own experiences of pulling together as a family and building up their businesses. Tragically, In 2018 their oldest son Jessie Jr. died unexpectedly at the age of 43 years old and the Jakubowski family was devastated. Searching for a way to honor his memory and passion for auto mechanics and classic cars, in 2019 they founded the Jessie J Foundation that awards scholarships to students from the Eldred Central School interested in pursuing vocational studies in auto mechanics. When Covid closed the Diner for two years, Irene continued to make her restorative cabbage soup for her ailing friends. I drive to a small Polish Company in New Jersey to get the best quality Kielbasa for my cabbage soup because it does makes a real difference in the taste of the soup” she explained.

Known as the “Baroness of Breakfast” for her extensive breakfast menu offerings which is called “The breakfast of Champions: featuring the Queen Bee (two eggs, home fries and toast and jelly) and the Hungry Man Omelet (four eggs, sausages, ham, onions, peppers, and hash browns) or her 2-2-2-(two eggs, two pancakes and two pieces of bacon) foods that have become part of our community’s culinary culture. After decades of standing in her kitchen and having a grueling work schedule with early hours and only her husband Jessie helping her while she cooked for thousands of happy customers, Irene has finally sold the Diner/ garage building and the Baroness of Breakfast is now  ready to retire which is something she has wanted to do for several years. Irene’s final day at Irene’s Eldred Diner will be on Sunday, July 8. So stop by and wish Irene and her family best wishes for a wonderful and well deserved retirement.