Mae Dunn was twenty-four when she and Frank took the lease on an empty ice cream kiosk on Marine Parade. This summer the diner turned fifty-two, and Mae still comes in every morning.
Six stools and a griddle
"We had six stools, a coffee machine and a griddle Frank found in a scrap yard in Ramsgate," Mae says. "The first summer we sold bacon rolls and tea to the fishermen, and ice cream to everyone else."
The jukebox
In 1981 Frank bought a jukebox from a pier arcade that was closing down. It cost forty pounds and two weekends of repair. It has played every afternoon since, and it still takes old ten-pence pieces.
The second generation
Eddie Dunn started washing up at fourteen and took over the griddle in 1995. "Mum still checks the pancake batter," he says. "She is usually right."
What has not changed
The booths are new and the menu is longer, but the checkerboard floor is the one Frank laid in 1974. The window seats are still the first to go.
