As a BC undergrad, Andy Satter ’76 captured the heart and soul of Russ’s Kitchenette Diner with his camera full of black-and-white film. Russ’s had been a neighborhood institution for 37 years before Satter stumbled upon it—“an olfactory bomb of bacon, coffee, butter, and cigarette smoke,” he says. To an outsider, it may have looked like a decrepit railroad car in an empty lot. But once inside, “I fell in love,” Satter says. A step through its sliding door and Russ’s bustled with local life, music, and stories that belonged to those who frequented it for breakfast and lunch: truck drivers, police officers, firefighters, postal delivery workers, and construction workers.

Although the diner is long gone (replaced by CambridgeSide mall and other buildings), those moments live on in Satter’s extraordinary photographs. His collection, aptly named The Diner Project, has traveled throughout the East Coast, evoking nostalgia for a slice of Americana—or freshly baked cake.

See Satter’s images online at satterphoto.com and in person at CambridgeSide for eight weeks starting March 29, 2025, and/or in his book (March 20), “Walk-ins Welcome”.