The Greasy Spoon is a small, local or roadside eatery (frequently a "truck stop"), with black-and-white checkered tile floors, red leather covering all its booths, and coffee-stained menus galore. Your archetypal American Greasy Spoon features:

• A nondescript name, such as "Joe's" or "Franky's Diner." May occasionally be called "The Greasy Spoon" for self-aware comedic effect.
• Waitresses, often grumpy and sarcastic ones with southern accents and truly terrifying perms (and possibly worse bleach jobs), but who affably refer to everyone, even total strangers, as "hon," "suga," "sweetie," or "dear." She might be a "Flo."
• A constantly bickering kitchen/waitstaff. The chef will always be wearing a tank top, have a pot belly, and sport a decidedly working class one-syllable name like Jim, Frank, or Earl.
• A nigh-endless stream of indecipherable "diner speak" between the waiters and the cooks. Word Salad-esque phrases such as "burn the pig and put it out to pasture!"^note  Bacon and salad and "three brown cows for Table 4!"^note  Either a chocolate milk, a chocolate ice cream with chocolate soda, or chocolate ice cream with root beer float through the air, confusing all laymen but somehow imbuing ungodly speed to the speakers. This is influenced by the Real Life Waffle House chain in the American South.
• Food served will either be horrible or improbably delicious (just as long as you don't have too many questions about what goes on in the kitchen).
• The menu tends towards unpretentious Americana: pancakes, burgers, fries, hot dogs, milkshakes, fried chicken, chicken-fried steak, biscuits and sausage gravy, etc., all washed down with bottomless, vile, and well-boiled coffee. Expect any local health food fanatics to complain loudly about the fat and cholesterol content while making comments about people dying early deaths from eating the food, or any out-of-towners used to funkier fare to scoff at how boring the menu is.
• Probably owned and operated by some sort of "ethnic" immigrant/descendant of immigrants. Most often these are Greek, but Jewish, Polish, and Russian ones are not uncommon in the Northeast. This impacts the menu: Greek diners usually have gyros and moussaka, while the Jewish, Polish, and Russian ones can be counted on to have blintzes.
• The "Best Darn X Pie in the Nation." Frequently pumpkin, apple, or cherry; occasionally blueberry. Or pecan if you're in the South, pronounced "p'CAHN."
• Working class and blue-collar patrons, often burly truck drivers, bikers, rednecks and cops. Cityfolk and vacationing middle-class families tend to stick out like sore thumbs. If the diner is in a large city, the patrons will be a mix of various sorts.
• Drunk patrons at night (coming back from the bar) and hung-over ones in the morning/early afternoon on weekends. Both are attracted by the greasy food (the drunk ones to satisfy the drunk munchies, the hung-over ones because fatty food is good for a liquor-damaged stomach); the morning folk also seek the painkilling power of caffeine. Going to a diner while drunk or hung-over is practically a trope in itself.
• Stemming from this, a Diner Brawl might break out at some point.
• If the Greasy Spoon is meant to evoke a "50's diner" feel, it may have jukeboxes at the tables, or off to the side somewhere.
• A Disgusting Public Toilet covered in Bathroom Stall Graffiti.
• May be a Local Hangout, particularly in a smaller community.
• Patrons may treat the waitresses fairly “boisterously”, with butt-slapping, ogling and attempted pick-ups the order of the day.
• May be located along a Stock Desert Interstate, perhaps near an auto body shop, and is often the only eatery around for miles.

Many Real Life examples are converted diner cars, but if you happen across a diner that looks like one, consider its location and upkeep. If it's nowhere near a railyard and looks freshly polished, chances are it's an example of Square Peg, Round Trope; expect to see clean booths and an overpriced menu, and your chances of hearing Hash House Lingo or banter with loyal regular customers are slim. If, however, it appears to be a real diner car on a decommissioned spur near a railyard across from The City Narrows, it might be this trope.

Oh, and by the way: the American diner is very important to the culture of the Northeast, and is practically a religion in New Jersey. Argue with a Northeasterner—and especially a New Jerseyan, and really especially a North Jerseyan—about what a diner is at your own peril.^note In the Mid-West, Indiana is usually the locus for diner culture, and can be very proud of it, too!

It is also common to have a ordinary greasy spoon in a quite fantastic setting, in a case of Recycled IN SPACE. Occasionally, it features as the Inn Between the Worlds.

Similar to the Malt Shop, but lacks any kind of Nostalgia Filter. If the restaurant is especially foul, you're dealing with a Lethal Eatery.

American Examples:

British Examples

The British equivalent is basically similar in most respects, but will offer some tea (the strong, "builder's tea" variant^note The Other Wiki used to say "weak, tepid, milky tea (or, in transport cafés, tea thick enough to float a lorry wheelnut, served just below the melting point of the mug)" and was 100% correct on both counts) as well as coffee. The decor usually involves Formica tables and chairs rather than booths, sometimes bolted to the floor. Usually offer an "all-day breakfast" of some sort that follows the same basic principle as the breakfasts in the American version, lots of carbs and protein but not a lot of other micronutrients, but most offer some sort of vaguely healthy option; "Meat and two veg" was the traditional lunchtime option, but nowadays the menu usually extends to things like lasagne or chilli con carne, and maybe a Sunday roast. Trying to order biscuits and gravy will get you some very funny looks.

Examples of Greasy Spoon analogues in fantastic settings

Other Examples