The '97-Year-Old NYC Diner Still Serves Their Coke the Old Fashioned Way' meme stems from a viral video featuring the Lexington Candy Shop in Manhattan. The footage showcases a luncheonette worker meticulously crafting a Coca-Cola by combining manual syrup pumps with carbonated water, rather than using a modern automated fountain. While the video was originally shared to celebrate the diner's preservation of 1925 traditions, it quickly became a meme template on platforms like Twitter and TikTok. Users utilize the imagery to represent purity, high-quality standards, or 'gatekeeping' the right way to do something, often contrasting the 'old school' artisanal process with modern, low-effort alternatives.