DUKES: An Ode to the Diner Classics We Love

Remember the diner breakfasts of your childhood? Syrup-soaked pancakes, golden hash browns, and a booth you never wanted to leave. Those core memories are the whole point here, remade from scratch with real love and intention. DUKES is the second act from Caroline Murphy and Emma Campbell, the duo behind Corner Peach, and it runs on a simple promise: the same menu seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., breakfast whenever you want it. Open since the summer of 2024, it already feels like a fixture.

Born from Too Much Sourdough

The story starts with bread. When the pandemic hit, Corner Peach put its extra sourdough starter out on the windowsill; within two weeks there was a lineup around the block, and selling naturally fermented loaves (two to three days per loaf) grew into a full corner store. Unfortunately, sourdough is a labour of love, not a moneymaker. “If we had another business that could use up a lot of the bread, that could be a really good, consistent client for us,” thought Murphy. Around the same time, the old diners she loved, neighbourhood spots in Vanier like the White Horse and Bobby’s Table, were closing one after another. DUKES answered both problems at once: a steady home for all that bread, and classic diner food with just enough tweaks.

Put Up Your Dukes

The name surfaced while the two were playing with logo designs, and it stuck once they looked it up: put up your dukes, from an old Cockney expression in which your forks were your fists. “As a restaurant owner, every day you come in ready for whatever the battle is for that day,” Murphy says. The address came with history too: 40 Adeline Street once housed the Rex, a much-loved bistro-diner. The pair rebuilt the kitchen, and renovated the space themselves to make DUKES what it is: a quirky little spot of about 35 seats, plus a lovely patio of 20 or so in the summer.

Nostalgia Done Right

The pancakes here are truly special. The recipe comes from Murphy’s grandmother, with cottage cheese in the batter for a tang that plays beautifully against the maple syrup, and you can choose to add whipped cream, chocolate chips or in-season fruit. In true DUKES fashion, there is sourdough in there too: the batter gets both starter and yeast, a trick discovered during COVID when a spoonful of starter kept their take-home pancake batter from collapsing. The whole menu follows suit, pretty much customizable in Murphy’s words: a long list of sides lets you add an egg, or nearly any ingredient in the kitchen, to just about anything. The hash browns follow the same logic of nostalgia done properly (“I wanted it to be like McDonald’s, but real,” says Murphy), and the breakfast burrito is the one she could never find in Ottawa. The sandwiches, tuna melt and turkey club chief among them, might be the ideal way to discover the bread this duo has put so much care into. To make allthat feast go down, the drip coffee, naturally, is bottomless.

A Spot You Could Make a Habit out of

The kitchen now runs under head kitchen manager Sam Rimmel and a tight little team, and the sourdough still shines bright, as the thing that started it all. Weekends fill up quickly, so come early, or better, make it a weekday habit. “People’s spots that they can go to once or twice a week and have these really great regulars,” is how Murphy describes the diners she grew up loving. Two years in, DUKES has become exactly that.

Written by Marie-Ève Godin
Photography by Andrew Rashotte

Updated on August 14, 2026

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