Meal Ticket JNL follows the same basic letter shapes as Jeff Levine's Flatbush Beanery JNL, but with a much lighter look and feel. This is another perfect typeface for recreating the sign lettering and menus of old-time diners, drive-ins and restaurants.

Vintage sheet music was initially a partial inspiration for what started out as a simple retro typeface, but the basic hand-lettered design from the Art Deco era lent itself to some further experimentation. Geometric shapes were added to the original monoline letters and numerals and the end result was a marvelous display face called Cafe Society JNL. During the 1930s, "Cafe Society" was popular slang for the financially privileged during the Great Depression who dined at fine cafes while others who were able to eat out did so at diners and cafeterias. Available along with Cafe Society JNL is the original version, Cafe Society Monoline JNL.

Sitting in a diner and looking upon a wall full of nostalgia, there hangs a picture of another older diner in some Northern city. The lettering from it's rooftop sign almost screams "Make a font out of this!"... so Jeff Levine did... "Hash and Beans JNL".

In the collection of vintage and historic images available online from the Library of Congress is one of the exterior of the Town Talk Diner in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Regrettably, on May 28, 2020, the Town Talk Diner was damaged by vandalism, and subsequently destroyed by a fire that engulfed the building early on the morning of May 29th due to civil unrest following the death of George Floyd. The restaurant first opened in 1946, closed in 2011 and subsequently re-opened under new ownership in 2014 with French cuisine, then from 2016 until its demise as an American bistro. While this was not known at the time of selecting the image for a typographic model, subsequent research on the diner turned up these facts. The large vintage sign above the entrance was in big, bold Art Deco letters with rows and rows of bulbs for illuminating the name at night. Coffee and Danish JNL, modeled from the image of that sign, is available in both regular and oblique versions. Perhaps, in a way, the type design will serve as a bit of historic recognition for a popular eating spot.