Press & Sun-Bulletin | Binghamton, NY | November 21, 2006

One of Endwell's oldest landmarks, the Broadway Diner, will celebrate its 50th anniversary today with a menu (and prices) from 1956 -- a flashback to its opening year.

A breakfast special will run from 6 to 11 a.m., including two eggs, home fries, toast and coffee for 95 cents. A short stack of pancakes also will cost 95 cents.

Lunch specials include 75-cent burgers, 45-cent hot dogs, 95-cent BLT sandwiches and 25-cent coffees and sodas. Dessert will cost between 35 cents and 95 cents.

Ten months after the city declared El Vado Motel an official landmark, the owner of the property at 2500 Central Ave. S.W., is looking to raze the place.

Richard Gonzales, who is separately appealing the landmark designation, filed an application this month to demolish the property, arguing that it can't make money in its current condition.

"I have no alternative," he said Friday.

His long-term plans for the land are only preliminary, but he did express interest in building townhomes or condominiums there. Previously, Gonzalez talked of converting the land into residential units while retaining a "significant portion" of El Vado, but he said the city didn't want to play ball.

The Venus Diner, a 1940's era Fodero in the northern Pittsburgh area community of Gibsonia, has closed. From what little information we've been able to gleen, the diner has been shut down for at least three weeks.

We are developing more details on the closing and hope to report further soon.

The diner is on Route 8, near a Pennsylvania Turnpike exit and was long know for it's good food and expansively baked pies...with meringue that stood taller than most.

A local landmark and favorite eatery in Charlotte is closing its doors, sort of.

Anderson’s on Elizabeth Avenue has become a Charlotte institution, for its hearty breakfast and “World’s Best Pecan Pie.” The owner is closing the restaurant, however, so he can spend more time with his family, and pursue Anderson’s catering business full time.

Anderson’s owner Gary Anderson has been waking up at four in the morning for nearly 30 years. Anderson’s father passed away at a young age, after working hard all of his life, and this has weighed heavily on Anderson’s heart. Anderson also wants to be available for his kids too.

“Since I've been doing this I've had just a handful of Saturdays off and I was always jealous when guys would come in with their kids and going to ball games,” said Gary Anderson.

Officials are hoping a few resourceful entrepreneurs view Edgemere Diner, which the town inherited via tax lien in 1987, as a "diamond in the rough" - but they’re not banking on it just yet.

Monday night, selectmen considered Town Manager Daniel J. Morgado’s proposal to sell the diner, with the stipulation that the buyer must lease the Rte. 20 property on which it sits for 20 years. In deference to Selectman Thomas A. Fiore’s hesitance about selling the rundown property, the board opted to wait to take action until its next meeting Nov. 20.

"If someone offered that building to me today for $1, I don’t know if I’d take it. I could be wrong, and that’s why I want (an inspection) report," Fiore said.

The Republican and Democrat candidates for lieutenant governor do not agree on much, but yesterday they broke from a string of campaign events to down a couple of hot dogs each with the cheeseburger and pie crowd at Casey’s Diner in Natick, while working for votes in Metrowest towns.

Worcester Mayor Timothy P. Murray had just come from a forum with local selectmen and officials from several area towns where he talked about his experience in working on public school improvement and how commuter rail can make life more affordable and bring new jobs and development the way it has in Worcester since he became mayor.

Then it was off to the small diner where the burgers are cooked on a grill and piled high with onions and those that want all the fixings on their hot dog order a “Wellesley rounder” as one regular explained, “because Wellesley has everything”.

While the mayor met some local characters at the 10 seat counter and downed two hot dogs, more talk about transportation came up when he met Jack Francis Kelley, who explained he is now retired “three times” and does not care much for politics.

John L. Evangelista says he was “thin, good looking and poor” when he started out in business at the Parkway Diner in Worcester.

Today, at 78, he pokes fun at himself saying, he’s fat, but probably not as poor. Oh, and, he’s quick to add that he’s a “Jack of all trades.”

He literally wears many hats, keeping a stash of them under the counter. He sometimes is seen sporting a splashy hat complete with a fake gray pony tail, or his “biker” hat. He said his choice of hat depends on who is sitting on the stool in front of him. “I’m an entertainer at heart,” he said.

The Parkway Diner, in Worcester’s Little Italy on Shrewsbury Street, turned 50 year on Oct. 1. There hasn’t been an official birthday party yet, but Evangelista said he plans to “surprise” his customers later on.

When politicians, in the heat of a campaign, go looking for the perfect place to press the flesh, a place where they can hang with “Average Joe” and prove their everyman bona fides, they head to a diner…for a cuppa Joe….because the classic American diner and politics go together like, well, bacon and eggs.

This year is no exception. Candidates across the nation are being dragged by their Brooks Brothers shirttails into diners of all shapes and sizes.

Of course, politicians in the New Jersey area and across New England have it the easiest, because both of those regions are still replete with original diners, many of which were built not far from where they still sit. No retro here. No kitsch. No 45rpm records nailed to the ceiling or cheesy Betty Boop trinkets festooning the place; these are solid diners made by the venerable Worcester Lunch Car Manufacturing Company and by Jerry O’Mahony and Silk City, with names like the A-1 and Scotty’s and the Fish Tail. Many are well over 50 years old. They are the real deal.

The Fairlee Motel & Drive-In Theater combines the best of roadside America. Drive in, and you have your classic outdoor experience. Check in, and a picture window and NuTone speaker give you the same show from your king-size bed - with air conditioning and no mosquitoes.

The Fairlee is one of at least two drive-in motels in the United States. Another is the Best Western Movie Manor in Monte Vista, Colo. The Movie Manor claims to be the original, but according to the motels' histories, the Fairlee's combination came first, in 1960.