<p>Corrine and Gerald King share a blackberry jenny lynn recently at the Long Branch Cafe & Saloon in Weston.</p>

On weekends, the Long Branch Cafe & Saloon in Weston is full up. People know the food is good and served in big portions.

Theres people standing in line, standing outside. The tables are full most of the time. Its really hectic,?said owner Bernice Charlton. Sometimes it takes a while to get your food, but weve gotten comments that everybody thinks its worthwhile waiting for it.

Bernice loves to cook. She makes much the same fare at the diner she made growing up. She calls it good, old, farm food.

Im the oldest girl of nine kids. I grew up cooking, she said. Pretty much ours is basic grill food and deep-fried food all that stuff. Were very generous.

The Long Branch, 201 E. Main St., has been a Weston institution since the 1980s. It occupies the oldest building in town, built in 1884. Charlton and her family took over the business in 1990.

Thirty-seven?miles away, Archies Restaurant, 194 W. Main St., is just getting started in?Pilot Rock. Owners Richard Carnes and Daniel Contway bought it a little more than a year ago.

Carnes could not find a job in Portland and the two were tired of crime in the city, anyway. So they moved to Carnes hometown, Pilot Rock.

Everyone that comes in we try to greet by name or just say, Hello, how ya doin?,?Carnes said. We want people to feel comfortable and want to come back.

The two small small-town diners have much in common, and likely a lot in common with the staples of Americana in any small town in Oregon. New or old, the diners fulfill a special role in small-town life, and hold a special place in their communities.

The most important role of the small diner is its one of the critical community gathering places, said Oregon State University economist Bruce Sorte. A lot of problems get discussed and solved. A lot of information is shared at small diners.

Social capital

Like other diners, Archies and the Long Branch have their farmers and coffee drinkers who arrive early in the morning. Next comes the regular lunch crowd followed by diners in search of a good supper.

Family gatherings and class reunions are common events at both the Long Branch and Archies. The owners are happy to be the place where people want to meet.

I think a lot of people come here to meet with their friends and have a good time,?Charlton said.

All that sharing information, Sorte said, helps the economy, too. He calls it social capital, the networking that makes the economy run smoothly.

As he travels around rural Oregon, Sorte said, he always sits at the bar in a small-town diner. He watches the cooks and waitresses work, part of his process of gathering economic information.

Ill ask the waitress how the tips are going,?Sorte said. When tips drop off, its a good way of measuring consumer confidence. When the economy is good, people like the community, cooks stay around.

All in the family

The Long Branch and Archies have something else in common: Their namesakes are TV shows of the 1960s and 70s.

Charlton takes the name Long Branch like the saloon in the old western Gunsmoke to heart. For years, customers and friends have called her Miss Kitty, the name of the similarly red-haired owner of the Long Branch on Gunsmoke.

If they met me in the last 10 years, its Miss Kitty, but otherwise its Bernice. Or the lady that owns the Long Branch, Charlton said.

Archies is named for Carnes father, Donald Carnes, who died in 2009. The elder Carnes had adopted the nickname Archie, for Archie Bunker, the cranky character from All in the Family.

The Long Branch is a family place. Charltons son Russell and daughter Ginny Gone worked there. Now her granddaughter Shylee and her husband, Chris Welch, are considering taking it over. If Bernice ever retires.

The restaurant is open seven days a week, and five of those days she comes in at 5 a.m. to get started and open up.

I have no intentions of retiring, she said. Because what would I do?

Charlton, Carnes and Contway all said they love owning their own businesses.

Not that Im a control freak, Contway said. But its nice to be able to shape something into what you want it to be and have it work that way.