Eat at the Shamrock, then get gas

In Brighton. The gas station and empty diner are still there.

RFD....

It seems like the water tower is awfully close in this photo, but it kind of makes sense...

Thanks for playing, folks! This is the Winthrop Ave crossing at the Beachmont Station site in 1952

There used to be lots of diners around greater Boston, which have vanished without a trace. This diner does not resemble the Pig & Whistle.

I can't figure it out myself, but I can offer the following clues, all of which also indicate that this was not the Pig & Whistle and probably not in Brighton.

Someone else has already pointed out that the full (not cropped) view of the image shows trackless trolley wires above the street in the foreground, that runs from right to left. Market Street in Brighton never had trackless trolleys. Western Avenue did, but this doesn't look like Western.

The large sign with the diagonal brace, under the street lamp in the center, is an old-fashioned railroad crossing sign. So there must have been a rail line immediately behind the photographer. But it couldn't have been either the Boston & Albany (now Framingham-Worcester) line or the Providence line, both of which were fully grade-separated by the early 1900s. It was most probably a branch line or an industrial spur.

The highway sign to the left of that, which can't be read because we're looking at the back, is the shape that Massachusetts used along numbered highways, meaning that the foreground (right to left) street was probably a numbered highway. Of course, numbered highways have been rerouted a number of times since the 1950s.

Possible trackless trolley routes that come to mind include the 36 (Spring St.), 34 (Washington St.), 32 (Hyde Park Ave.), and 20 (Neponset Ave.). The latter had a state highway and a railroad spur near its end. So I'm guessing maybe somewhere near Neponset Circle??

The tank in the left background, above the back of the diner, is for natural gas, not water.