How much do you think it would cost to save one of the city's landmarks?

According to Brian O'Rourke's attorney, Jane McMillan, and architect Jeff Bianco, it will cost about $350,000 to save O'Rourke's Diner.

A committee has been formed to help assist in the effort to reopen the diner. Larry Marino, president of Marino Crane, will head the committee, which will also include Sebastian Giuliano, mayor of Middletown; Larry McHugh, president of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce; and Douglas J. Bennet, president of Wesleyan University, as honorary chairmen. Other members of the committee include residents Heather Tolley-Bauer, Robert Holzberg, Jannie Janaki and Bob Wolfe.

"The city is going to support the committee as much as they can," said Geen Thazhampallath, the mayor's executive assistant.

The city will be able to help O'Rourke's get the necessary examinations to bring the building up to code. The building has to pass health department and fire marshal examinations, among others.

By Richard Salit | The Providence Journal | September 18, 2006

Wrapped in gleaming stainless steel and striped with yellow and green porcelain enamel, Tommy's Diner remained a genuine slice of Americana as everything around it changed.

Huge stores and shopping plazas surrounded it, cars zoomed by in increasing numbers and people just seemed to become more hurried than in the old days, too rushed to enjoy a homemade meat loaf or cup of soup.

So 53 years after opening on East Main Street, Tommy's Diner closed last spring. Today, unceremoniously uprooted from its foundation, it sits upon wooden supports, ready to be hauled down the road any day toward an uncertain future.

Ironically, what will take Tommy's place is its very nemesis, the type of business that can contribute to the death of a diner: Another fast-food chain with a drive-through window. A Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut shop is replacing Tommy's.

"It's the way of the world," says Peter Krones, the third and last generation of his Greek family to run Tommy's at the East Main location. "It's going to kill us just to see the diner leave."

The Vermont cob-smoked bacon and pork, buttered pancakes and freshly brewed coffee, and the hamburgers made from local beef are familiar, but the location and façade have changed.

The Farmer's Diner has been reborn, still pushing its landmark motto: food from here.

With the backing of investors, visionary Tod Murphy has opened the latest incarnation of the much-publicized eatery, in what the farmer-turned-entrepreneur hopes is a prime location: Quechee Gorge Village.

The new Farmer's Diner is still using products from within a 70-mile radius of its premises, which is the idea at the heart of his vision: to provide good old-fashioned food grown locally, helping build markets for farmers in the process.

The Quechee establishment is the second stab at that idea. The Farmer's Diner in Barre, which originally opened in July 2002, abruptly closed its doors in August 2005. The staff was laid off and the experiment, which had drawn media coverage by food writers from around the nation, came to an end. But while some thought the closure hailed the demise of the innovative model restaurant, Murphy insists it was edifying.

By William Lamb | NorthJersey.com | September 13, 2006

The Tom Sawyer Diner, an institution on East Ridgewood Avenue in the borough, was destroyed by a three-alarm fire Tuesday night, officials said.

No one was injured in the blaze, which was reported to authorities just after 7 p.m., Paramus Fire Chief Kevin Sheehan said.

The fire appeared to have started in the restaurant's basement, Sheehan said, although a cause was not immediately clear. The borough's Fire Prevention Bureau and Building Department are investigating, he said. It took Paramus firefighters about an hour to bring the fire under control, with firefighters from Washington Township and Fair Lawn assisting.

Not all red roses have thorns and smell perfumy.

Proof is the Red Rose Diner I found along Towanda's main street during a ride along Pennsylvania's U.S. Route 6.

The Red Rose's scent is a mixture of omelets, waffles, homemade pies and chicken soup -- a place where it's a pleasure to wake up and smell the coffee.

Mostly, Gordon Tindall's 1927 dining car reeks of nostalgia.

That's because "Gordie," as his help and customers call him, can't resist the lure of the past.

He paid $5,000 for the wreck of a diner in Stroudsburg, Pa., eight years ago and moved it to Lancaster, Pa., for restoration. He named the diner after Lancaster, known as the "Red Rose City."

Who needs a car at the drive-in theater? Just go straight to bed.

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. 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 Fairlee's combination came first, in 1960.

The Fairlee sits along Route 5 in a pretty stretch of eastern Vermont, just across the Connecticut River from New Hampshire.

At dusk, the fireflies come out. Groups of young campers arrive in vans and spread blankets near the screen. The Fairlee has daily shows after July 4 and double features on weekends, attracting between 100 and 400 cars on weekends. The movie season lasts from May 1 to Columbus Day.

By Josh Kovner | The Hartford Courant | September 8, 2006

Organizers of a fund to help rebuild the fire-damaged O'Rourke's Diner said Thursday that they were stunned when they opened the first envelope and found a $10,000 check from an individual who insisted on anonymity.

The donor was a customer at Brian O'Rourke's diner, according to Jane McMillan, O'Rourke's lawyer. The check came Wednesday, and she saw it Thursday morning, she said.

"It was overwhelming. This is a patron, not a close, close friend," McMillan said.

The inside of the 60-year-old diner was charred by a pre-dawn fire on Aug. 31, triggered by a hamburger steamer that was left on. O'Rourke did not carry fire insurance.

Friends of Brian O'Rourke say he intends to rebuild his famed diner, and Middletown architect Jeffrey Bianco said Sunday he is donating his professional services to the cause.

Bianco said the shell of the dining-car style building can be salvaged, and that damage to the art deco interior of O'Rourke's Diner isn't as bad as was originally feared. Bianco, who examined the restaurant Saturday with city Building Official John Parker, said he is optimistic that the diner can be rebuilt.

The 60-year-old diner, damaged in a fire early Thursday, is an anchor in the North End neighborhood. It is part of the Main Street Historic District, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

"This seems a pretty doable restoration project," said Bianco, chairman of the city's design preservation and review commission. His specialty is the restoration of old buildings.

Brian O'Rourke flipped through the pages of his fire-charred journal Thursday afternoon until he got to an empty page.

"I didn't get to write in this today yet," O'Rourke said, standing downtown, just steps from O'Rourke's Diner, the family restaurant and 60-year city staple ravaged by fire early Thursday.

When he does write, the entry in the leather-bound journal - one of the few possessions O'Rourke was able to salvage from his gutted business - might tell the story of what devoted customers Thursday called the most infamous day in the long history of this landmark diner.

Firefighters at headquarters just a few doors down on Main Street were called to the diner shortly before 2:30 a.m. The restaurant was closed for business and no one was inside the dining-car-style building as flames, fueled by cooking oil and greasy-spoon remnants, raged.