Bendix Diner owner is subject of documentary to be shown this week

John Diakakis navigates the narrow space behind the counter of the Bendix Diner with the familiarity of someone who’s been working there for decades.

Diakakis, the owner of the longtime diner in Hasbrouck Heights, brings customers their coffee and eggs as he cracks disarming jokes, and rings them up on the old-fashioned register.

His family has owned the classic eatery decked with chrome and neon since 1985, when his father bought the place. He has been legally blind since birth.

“I’m not sure when they notice I’m blind or not,” he says of his customers in a documentary that highlights Diakakis, his work and his family. “Just as I’m walking around, they get it.”

The 26-minute film, “Bendix: Site Unseen,” will be shown this week and next at the Ridgewood International Film Festival and the ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York, which is dedicated to telling the stories of people with disabilities.

The filmmaker, Anthony Scalia, came upon the diner one late night in 2016. It was nearing 3 a.m., and he was looking for a place to eat. The Bendix was the only place that was open nearby. Although the diner was just a few miles from his Lodi home, Scalia had never gone in.

“A waiter came to the table, and I could tell something was off. Instead of putting the glass of water on the table, he kind of hovered over and waited for me to grab it,” Scalia remembers. “Eventually, I asked: ‘Are you blind?’ He told me, ‘Yeah, and that’s my son working the grill. He just got accepted to Harvard.’”

Scalia, who works as a freelance editor, had made short documentaries, about Cardy's Sugar Bowl, an old-fashioned candy store in Lodi, the Lafayette Theater in Suffern, New York, and Clinton Place, a street in Hackensack famous for its over-the-top Halloween decorations.

“I’d made a few short films about people or things in Jersey I thought were interesting,” he said. “I grew up five minutes from the Bendix but always passed it by. I thought 'Here’s this great story right in my backyard.' ”

The Bendix, which sits at the center of a tangle of highways where Routes 17 and 46 meet, has been a local fixture since 1947 and has appeared in numerous commercials and films, including “Jersey Girl,” “Boys on the Side” and “The Many Saints of Newark.” The eatery got its name from a nearby aviation parts manufacturer.

“Teterboro used to be called Bendix … There was a Bendix Corporation, other things,” Diakakis says in the film. “This run-down diner is the only one that kept the name.”

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Scalia didn’t start filming until 2018, and it took him three years to complete. Over time, as he got to know Diakakis — his history, talents and quirks — the project evolved and didn’t fit into the seven-minute format he had used in his other films.

“It just didn’t do the story justice,” Scalia said. “That’s when I released the idea of what the format should be and let the story take its own shape.”

Diakakis gained custody of his three sons, Tony, Dimitri and Michael, when they were young. The boys grew up at the diner and eventually worked there with him, doing homework during slow times. Tony, the oldest, graduated from Harvard last year. The other two are still in college.

In the documentary, Diakakis performs stand-up at a local comedy club and displays his vast shoe collection — he estimates he owns about 700 pairs.

But it’s the Bendix, which he calls “Cheers with food,” and his family that are the heart of the film.

“I don’t have two eyes that see, but I have six eyes that see for me,” Diakakis says. “That’s my children.”

The film was screened last fall at several film festivals, including DOC NYC, the largest documentary festival in the country, the Naples International Film Festival in Florida, and Kevin Smith's SModcastle Film Festival in Atlantic Highlands. It won the Audience Award and Best New Jersey Short at the Montclair Film Festival in October.

"Bendix: Site Unseen" will play at the Ridgewood International Film Festival on April 27, at the Bow Tie Cinemas Warner Quad, 190 East Ridgewood Ave., and at the ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York on April 29 and May 2, and is streaming on the festival’s website from April 27 to May 3 at reelabilities.org/newyork.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bendix Diner owner subject of documentary at Ridgewood film festival