Worcester is virtually synonymous with diners. Tradition has it that the modern diner started out as a horse-drawn lunch carriage pioneered by Providence, Rhode Island, entrepreneur Walter Scott in 1872. But it was the commercial manufacturing of lunch wagons starting in Worcester in 1887 that ensured their popularity.

Over the next few years, several companies set up shop in the city, but the most famous was the Worcester Lunch Car Company, which pioneered the railroad-diner-car look in the 1930s. The diner cars were designed for factory workers, who needed a good hearty meal served cheap and quickly, and frequently at odd hours to accommodate their schedules. Now genuine Worcester cars are prized by restaurant owners all over the Northeast. Of course, there are many fine examples of diners in the city that once created them.

Known locally as “the Bully,” the 24-hour Boulevard Diner (155 Shrewsbury St., 508/791-4535, $5–8) sets the mood with a neon exterior and dark wood interior. But it’s the greasy-spoon menu of homemade meatloaf, leg of lamb, and chicken soup that really brings back yesteryear.

Across from the former site of the Worcester Lunch Car Company itself, the Miss Worcester Diner (300 Southbridge St., 508/753-5600, , 5 a.m.–2 p.m. Mon.–Fri., 6 a.m.–2 p.m. Sat.–Sun., $4–8) has been reopened after being shuttered for several years. Otherwise known as the “Miss Woo,” it is located inside the original Worcester Lunch Car No. 812, which once served the factory workers who made the cars themselves; now it may be the only surviving Worcester car in the city that gave them their name.