Photo courtesy Glenn Wells

“Engle saves! Tindall scores on the rebound!”

If you’ve followed our site for the last few months you’ve noticed a semi-regular feature called “Hockey and a Diner,” penned by Mike Engle. And while this headline doesn’t have the comedic possibilities of the original (“Jesus saves, Gretzky scores on the rebound!”) it does do a nice job of summing up something that has just occurred….

When Mike Engle acquired his own vintage diner four years ago, he had high hopes that he would be able to restore it and then, “Go from there.” Along the way, however, real-life repeatedly sidetracked his plans. Now, however, Mike’s diner has found a new home and new hope.

Within the last two weeks, the diner was moved from Gilbertsville, NY to Towanda, PA where Gordon Tindall will undertake a full restoration. Tindall is well known for this immaculate restoration of an early Tierney dining car, The Red Rose Diner, which now graces downtown Towanda.

According to Mike Engle, his diner was originally built in Silver Creek, NY by Goodell Hardware around 1927. At that time, there were no less than five builders of diners in western NY, including the most well known, Ward & Dickinson Dining Car Co. also of Silver Creek. Unlike Ward & Dickinson, however, Goodell may have only built about twenty diners. No others are known to exist today.

The five-year local saga of the Silver Top diner has become Pawtucket's version of the classic comic film "Groundhog Day," where each day awakens the same as the day before no matter what happens in between.

But now a new day may be dawning for the diner's fate as the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency, which has expended about $60,000 on the stuck-in-neutral business venture by diner owner Patricia Brown, is set to go to court to either take possession of the diner and sell it off or find some other legal means to get it out of town and get its money back.

The PRA at its monthly meeting Tuesday voted unanimously to authorize its attorney, Kevin Horan, to pursue the court action, to be filed sometime late this week or next week.

"Obviously, there was a ton of discussion" over the years with Brown, Horan said, on business plans and other attempts to get the diner back in business.

A developer plans to replace the old diner on Chatham's Main Street with a three-story, commercial-and-residential building that fits into the historic district.

The diner -- a Silk City structure manufactured in the 1940s by the Paterson Vehicle Co. -- was transported to Chatham in 1949, according to the Chatham Historical Society.

Painted white, with a maroon awning, it doesn't showcase the typical, shining-steel-and-neon look of a classic diner. Instead, the former Chatham Diner -- now the Colombian Cafe -- sits sideways on its lot, leaving space for an alley.

The owner, 221 Main Street LLC, has offered the structure to local recreational organizations and the school district, which could use it as a snack bar at a ball field, said Janet Siegel, the architect of the new project.

"It preserves a structure which represents the Pullman-style diner of a certain age," said Eleanor Smith, secretary of the Chatham Historic Preservation Commission, an advisory board that has approved the new building.

After nearly 40 years in operation, the Flamingo Diner may soon sell its last order of bacon and eggs if a pending multi-million-dollar deal for the cozy neighborhood landmark goes through.

The four-story building at 31 Montgomery St. that houses the diner was listed in a real estate advertisement on a popular Internet message board, Jersey City List (www.JCList.com). The asking price was $4 million, and sources familiar with the deal said it is currently "under contract."

The building's owner, Andreas Diakos, would only say "no story" yesterday when asked about the sale of the 155-year-old building that houses his diner.

Diakos opened the 24-hour diner roughly 40 years ago, long before the surrounding neighborhood was penned the "Gold Coast." He then bought the entire building roughly 20 years ago, according to published reports.

Muncie, IL
What's the more certain sign of spring -- robins appearing in snow-covered yards or the reopening of local drive-in restaurants?

Burkie's on West Jackson Street reopened Tuesday. Dairy Dream in Albany reopened this week, and Ritter's Frozen Custard was open all winter.

Scott Boylan, whose family owns Burkie's, said customers are ready for spring after a few snowy and bitterly cold weeks.

"People have never stopped asking me when we're going to open," Boylan said. "We've had a lot of people stopping by the past few days while we've been here getting ready."

Most drive-in restaurants -- particularly those that specialize in ice cream -- traditionally close during the winter months.

It was by mere chance that, driving down an industrial byway in Mineola, I came upon a picturesque little diner whose flags indicated it had recently opened.

The name of the place - Kiss the Chef - further piqued my curiosity. As I later learned, the chef aiming to inspire affectionate outbursts is Horacio Mazariegos, who, with his wife, Lorraine, runs this breakfast and lunch eatery at 106 E. Second St., 516-739-9600, the site of the former Hudson Diner. For 10 years, the couple had worked as corporate caterers in Manhattan. Now, the two have brought their talents to this 1940s-era vintage railroad car, which has stood on the same spot for the past 57 years.

Some Wichitans are getting a little nostalgic this Valentine's, spending the day with their sweethearts at Brint's Diner, on Lincoln and Oliver.

It's easy to drive right by Brint's. But when you find it, you've found instant family.

The diner's cooked up meals to order for the past forty years, in an original Valentine's building. The Valentine's Manufacturing Company of Wichita mass produced thousands of the all metal, moveable diners from 1938 to 1971.

Like lawn elves, the green in pickle relish and Dolly the cloned sheep, there are things in our world that do not occur in nature. Among them are terms we can call media words, since that is nearly their only remaining sanctuary.

One such unnatural word has appeared in the Tribune -- as I type this on the eighth of February -- 40 times so far this year, four times on this day alone in just one section. In other words, we have given readers an opportunity to read, on an average of a little more than once a day, a word that you very likely never have spoken nor heard in conversation.

The word is "eatery."

Do you ever say to that man or woman with whom you share your dreams, "Say, Hon, how about we go to an eatery tonight?" You don't. Does Charlie Trotter say, "Come on over to my eatery one of these days"? He doesn't.

Barre, VT
The grill is stone cold and the booths are all empty, but there are signs of life again at a Depression-era diner that will soon reopen under a new name – only its third in 75 years .

A Washington woman who grew up in Websterville and well remembers accompanying her grandparents on weekly breakfast excursions to the bustling eatery that most recently did business as the Farmer's Diner in Barre, says she and her boyfriend hope to reopen the spot sometime next month.

"We're pushing for mid-March," says Cheyenne Roberts, who has spent the past two weeks dealing with salesmen, cleaning the diner and painting it in keeping with its new NASCAR décor.

"We're calling it 'The Pit Stop'," says Roberts, whose father, Ricky, was once a regular at Thunder Road and still drives there part-time.

"I grew up at Thunder Road," says Roberts, 26. "I've been around racing all my life."

The same can't be said for Roberts' boyfriend, Eric DelToro.

Although DelToro, 32, will attend his very first race later this year, Roberts says the Puerto Rican-born son of a New York City deli owner is no stranger to the kitchen.

"He's always wanted to own a restaurant," explains Roberts, who met DelToro in Florida and moved back to Vermont with him last November.

Roberts says that's when she noticed that the restaurant she remembers as the Green Mountain Diner was for sale and decided to look into leasing it.

"When I was a kid the Green Mountain Diner was always busy," recalls Roberts. "My grandparents would take me to breakfast there every weekend and it was a zoo."