We've neglected our old friend of late, and it has made us sad. Long ago, during the beginning of Bill Clinton's age of prosperity and peace, this place was our home-away-from. Late at night, the din of Deep Ellum still ringing in our ears, or early in the morning, on the way to our battered former HQ on Commerce Street, this diner—its seats sparkly red, its walls wooden brown, its surfaces covered in a fine sheen of...something—this diner would be our coffee-and-cigarettes-and-big-effin'-grin be all and end all. Bacon and eggs and burgers and fries and ham and steak and everything else, that was extra, the greasy solutions to the hangover brewing all over. But the coffee...it was good, cheap, something with which you washed down the Chess Records blues and the occasional slice of radio cheese squawking out of the jukebox. There's nothing better than 2:52 a.m. coffee, couple of sunny-side-ups, three sticks of crispy bacon, a mound of greasy potatoes and a biscuit or two. Nowadays, course, you can't smoke at the Metro, but it's still there, still surviving and thriving despite the demise of Deep Ellum and the expanse of DART-board construction threatening to drown the joint in rebar and torn-up concrete. Nothing fancy here. Just home.