This Jersey Diner Immortalized Mick Jagger In A Sandwich

Breakfast just tastes better from a diner than it does at home. There's something about the environment — the sizzling grill, the smell of fresh coffee, the chrome walls, the big windows. Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones and a four-time Grammy Award winner, might agree. In 2019, Jagger said he stopped by the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton, New Jersey while touring. Later that year, Tick Tock named a sandwich after him.

The 24/7 diner, open since 1948, invites customers to "eat heavy" on its signage. The Mick Jagger sandwich is just the ticket. Two fried eggs are topped with cheese and Taylor ham, New Jersey's legendary breakfast meat, on a roll. Tick Tock then serves the sandwich with disco fries, another Jersey diner staple.

Born in Dartford, England, Mick Jagger might not be the first celebrity to come to mind when thinking of classic New Jersey diners. But he shouted out the Jersey restaurant when he passed through the state on tour in 2019. "We went to the Tick Tock Diner for a Taylor ham, egg, and cheese with disco fries and a sloppy joe to go," Jagger said on stage. In 2024, he highlighted Tick Tock again when touring in New Jersey, saying he returned to find the new sandwich on the menu — and that it was the first sandwich named after him.

In an interview with NJ.com, a waitress said nobody at the diner recognized Mick Jagger or two other musicians who were with him when they visited. "I kind of think they wanted to be low-key," said the waitress, who went by Kalliopi. The owner of the diner, Penelope Spyropoulos, told CBS News that "[Jagger] was with a big hat and he was covered. His head was down."

Here's the thing: It's not clear Jagger actually visited the Tick Tock Diner. At each concert in the 2019 tour, he mentioned a local landmark or two, and in some, a local food. The singer talked about a hoagie in Philadelphia, an Italian beef sandwich in Chicago, and chips and queso in Houston. And at the New Jersey concert, he mentioned the diner while joking about the state being the "health food capital of the USA." That's caused some to question if Jagger, who'd just gotten a stent in his heart, would actually load up on heavy diner food.

Whether he actually stopped by Tick Tock or not, Jagger referred to the breakfast meat as Taylor ham. By saying that, the Rolling Stones frontman waded into an age-old Jersey debate: That's its name in North Jersey, while South Jersey prefers to call it pork roll. Tick Tock sits squarely in North Jersey's Passaic County. The diner itself says the sandwich is made with Taylor ham.