Nighthawks at the Diner

The album was recorded live in the studio at the Record Plant, with two shows a night for an invited audience. The room was dressed with tables, chairs, a bar and potato chips so that it felt like a club, and Waits opens by naming the venue as Raphael's Silver Cloud Lounge. Howe and Herb Cohen wanted to bring out the jazz in Waits.

It reached number 164 on the Billboard 200, his best placing to that point, and earned a UK Silver certificate in 2010. Mark Deming of AllMusic gave it 3.5 out of 5, Pitchfork 8.5 out of 10, and Christgau a B. Peter Watts, writing in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, argued that the fake-club atmosphere possibly captures the appeal of early Waits even better than his two previous albums.

It was recorded at the Record Plant and Wally Heider Recording in Hollywood on 30 and 31 July 1975, with Bones Howe engineering. The cover and title were inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks (1942). Deusner called it a live album, but only sort of, and noted how it blurs the line between song and stage banter, pointing to the eleven-minute Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street). Spare Parts I carries a Chuck E. Weiss writing credit and Big Joe and Phantom 309 a Tommy Faile credit, while Waits is credited as writer of the other songs.