“How are you today?”

“Oh my god wow!”

“Good seeing you guys.”

This is the story of two sisters.

“Angela is my sister.” 

“Oh Ethel’s my sister.” 

And the diner they grew up in.  

“We get along with really well and we have for years.”

“We might have fought over clothing when we were little. But now it’s nice.” 

“I love working with my sister.”  

“We kind of complement each other.”

“We have each other’s back. And that’s important.”

You can find sisters Angela Mitchell and Ethel DePasquale and a whole lot of comfort food at The Agawam Diner.   

Situated in a vintage dining car, The Agawam Diner has been serving the locals of Rowley, Massachusetts since 1940.  

“It’s an institution.”

“I’ve been coming here since I was little with my mom and it has not changed and that’s what makes it great.”

Everyone knows Agawam Diner.”  

And it seems like everyone knows Ethel and Angela too.  

“They have been here for as long as I’ve been here.  They’re just amazing.  They’ve become my friends over the years.” 

“We actually have customers who come here three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  We have people come from Boston, just take a ride down and visit us at the diner.   And that’s really special. It’s kind of an honor to have them here.”

And you’ll feel special when you try some of the Agawam’s food. 

“Homemade food.  Food that mom used to make.  Food that people don’t make at home anymore. Your meatloafs, brown gravy, your chicken pie, that no one really makes anymore.” 

But they still make it all here… along with desserts that are so good, you may just want to start your meal with them.

“We have the best desserts.   They’re great.  Our pies are great so if you’re a pie person, this is the place to go.”

“Here we have our coconut cream pie.

This pie here is the banana cream.  

Just plain old custard.

Blueberry pie.  We have a cherry pie.

And then here you have your chocolate cream which is delicious.”

And while the pies are perfect, if you ask Angie, it’s all about the Chocolate Roll.  

“The chocolate rolls I have liked since I was I don’t know since I was a kid so they’re just frosted in the middle, chocolate on top and chocolate cake in between and I just love them. I eat one a week.  They’re great.”

Of course, any great diner must serve a great breakfast, and the Agawam doesn’t disappoint with oversized omelettes served with crispy homefries.

And stacks of fluffy pancakes.   

“They’re buttermilk pancakes.  They’re fluffy. They just this simple pancakes. Nothing fancy about them.  Very tasty. They’re really good. Just buttery.” 

“It reminds me of when I was a kid growing up. My mom used to make pancakes all the time.” 

But mom probably never made a housemade hash like this. 

“Hash and eggs we make here.  We make it fresh every day basically every day because we sell out of it.   There is some spices in their little bit of pepper. There’s the corned beef that we use the grey corned beef let some people use the pink as as a gray.  It’s got some potatoes in there.  It’s good. It’s really good.”

During lunch and dinner, you can feast on a hot turkey sandwich slathered in housemade gravy, overloaded seafood platters, golden fried and piled high and an overflowing roll packed with clam strips.

“They just hang out of that clam strip roll.  You can’t even lift the clam strip roll.   You have to start eating the clam strips before you can get to the roll”

“It’s a great flavor, I’m telling you, between the fried.  You get that sweet butter on the roll… I like it with tartar sauce.  It’s really good. And I know it’s a diner. And I know people say you have seafood and they like I go try it. I’m guarantee you will love it. And they do. They’re like, Oh my god, this is great. We’ll come back here.” 

Other options include plate tipping portions of American Chop Suey…..

And mouthwatering Meatloaf way better than you remember.  

“It’s very, very moist.  It’s very savory. It’s sweet with the peppers, that brown gravy just just really makes it.   Some people come in. They’ll say this. Oh, this is definitely it’s not dry like my mom’s meatloaf. You know my don’t tell your mom that.”

And don’t expect mom to make a Chicken Pie like the one at The Agawam either. 

“The chicken pie is all white meat chicken and the funny thing about our chicken pot pie is we don’t keep it in the casserole dish. So we flip it over, so the crust is on the bottom, and then we pour the gravy on top ot it.”

“They started that that a million years ago.  I believe it was just because the chicken pie dish so that way it doesn’t go out warm and anyone burns himself. So they just decided that let’s just flip it over and then serve it that way.”

It’s really nice. You got the peas, you get the carrots,and the nice piece of the chicken that goes in there.  That’s a very special dish.”

And the Agawam Diner is a very special place,  which is why Angela, Ethel, and their customers call it home.

“I think it’s a staple. I think if the Agawam Diner wasn’t here, I think it’d be sad.  It just just like family. I mean, it’s just a family type place to come visit.”

“It’s a familiar place. It’s a it’s been in the family forever. So they’re kind of all familiar with us all lot of people have seen us grown up, a lot of people move away. And they just remember the Agawam. It’s a special thing to see them come back.”