For the 1982 film by Barry Levinson, click here.
Diner is a Physical Pinball Table designed by Mark Ritchie and illustrated by Mark Sprenger. It was released by Williams Electronics in 1990.
Taking place in a 1950s-style train car diner, the player takes the role of a waitress who has to serve five hungry customers — Haji, Babs, Boris, Pépé, and Buck. As each person calls out an order, hit the drop targets for their dish and their sides, then collect the Grill bonus before it gets cold. Serve all five customers and you can collect the Dine-Time Jackpot, an award based on the game's backbox clock. For more tips, make successive shots to the cash register, Beat the Rush, then spell D-I-N-E-R for a chance to Stir the Cup for a pipin' hot couple'a millions.
A digital version was once available for FarSight Studios' The Pinball Arcade before FarSight's license to all WMS tables expired on July 1, 2018. Several years later, Zen Studios would produce its own digital version of Diner, releasing it on the Pinball FX platform on April 30, 2026.
The Diner pinball demonstrates the following tropes:
- Americans Are Cowboys: Buck, the only American customer at the diner, speaks with a Texan drawl and wears a big white Stetson hat.Buck: I'll have the Texas chili and fries!
- Amusing Injuries: Shooting the grill when it is not lit makes a noise of someone burning himself on a hot griddle and then screaming.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Unlike Taxi (Williams), you don't have to serve all the customers in a single ball.
- If you do not score a minimum amount of points, on Ball 3 one of the two outlanes lights for an extra ball, which can be collected if the ball rolls over the lit outlane switch.
- Boring, but Practical: Shooting the R in D-I-N-E-R and timing out stirring the cup is a slow but safe and steady way to build points.
- Cap:
- Stirring the Cup gives a maximum point value of 3,500,000, no matter how many more times the cup spins after it reaches that limit.
- At the end of each drained ball, players receive tips—up to 10% of the score after the main bonus is awarded—based on how many customers they've served during the game.
- The bonus multiplier tops out at 5x.
- Players' scores rolls over after reaching the 100,000,000-point threshold.
- The top value for Dine Time is 12,000,000 points.
- The Cash Register bonus (left ramp) tops out at 300,000 (increasing in multiples of 20,000).
- Captain Ersatz: Babs and Boris are obvious caricatures of Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin, respectively. It's also believed Haji is based on Bill Gates, and Pépé was modeled after Pancho Villa.
- Five-Token Band: Done literally with the customers, who embody a range of national stereotypes — an Indian (Haji), a Brit (Babs), a Russian (Boris), a Hispanic (Pépé), and an American cowboy (Buck).
- Gratuitous Spanish: If you take too long to serve Pépé, he responds, "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale!"
- Greasy Spoon: Fittingly, Diner's playfield embraces this motif with checkered-tile pattern, a jukebox, and unabashedly American food like burgers, fries, and coffee.
- I Am Very British: Babs, the only British customer, speaks solely in proper English with Reserved Pronunciation.Babs: "I shall have the iced tea and the frankfurter."
- Just a Stupid Accent: Each of the customers hails from a different country, and all of them speak English with a stereotypical accent.
- Leitmotif: A short jingle related to each customer's home country plays when you complete a customer's order.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Boris' theme uses the same Leitmotif as Gorby from Taxi (Williams).
- Score Multiplier: The skill shot value increases at the start of each new ball (up to 3x).
- Signature Style: As with other pinball games by Mark Ritchie, Diner includes criss-crossing ramps, numerous timed shots, and escalating rules.
- Skill Shot: Time the launch so the ball lands in the upper-right saucer to claim the reward on the moving jukebox light.Singers: Number ONE!
- Spelling Bonus: E-A-T raises the bonus multiplier and lights the inlanes, while D-I-N-E-R enables Stirring the Cup.
- The Smurfette Principle: Babs is the only female customer.