By Matt Kane:: Special to the Telegram & Gazette | July 13, 2006

Jim M. Wheeler, sitting at the counter of the Boulevard Diner yesterday, stared in disbelief at the cook when she told him the price of his meatball sandwich.

“What — has he lost his marbles?” said Mr. Wheeler, referring to nearby James K. George, owner of the diner.

The cook repeated that every food item on the menu was 70 cents to celebrate the Boulevard Diner’s 70-year anniversary. Streamers hung from the ceiling and 1970s disco hits played as hungry diners took advantage of the special from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. yesterday. Mr. George threw the celebration to give back to patrons for their loyal support.

“It’s our way of saying ‘thank-you,’ ” Mr. George said.

Mr. George said when he took over the diner in 2000, he made a commitment to his father and himself to keep the diner open 24 hours, “the way they used to be run.” He said the only things which change over the years are the faces and the prices.

“You know what they say ... if it’s not broke, keep everything the same,” he said.

A popular Schuyler County restaurateur died Sunday after a brief illness.

Anthony G. Pulos purchased Chef's Diner on state Route 14 between Montour Fall and Watkins Glen in 1949 and continued to take part in its operation until last Wednesday. He was also active in community affairs, serving as Montour Falls village mayor and chairing the Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls. He served on the board from 1973 to 1997.

He was 84.

Even after John Pulos, Mr. Pulos' son, took over the day-to-day management of the family-owned eatery, Tony continued to come to work every morning seven days a week, his son said.

"In 57 years, I think he hasn't missed 200 days," John Pulos said.

Mr. Pulos often met with buddies at the first booth out of the kitchen.

They served as backdrops for countless high school performances of ''A Christmas Carol'' at the town hall here, and elsewhere in Vermont they set the stage for Gilbert and Sullivan operas, traveling minstrel shows and vaudeville acts. Over the past few years, hundreds of hand-painted theater curtains that once hung on small stages in Vermont's opera houses and in its town and Grange halls have been found and are being revived thanks to a statewide preservation effort, the Vermont Painted Theater Curtain Project.

The project began in 1998, when the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance tried to inventory the state's theater curtains, asking all 251 of the state's town and city clerks for help.

In 2001, Chris Hadsel, who started the project while at the alliance, began to solicit state and federal money to repair the drapes. The grants, now totaling about $500,000, paid for most of the project, along with money from each city or town involved.

Tucked away in the green hills of Vermont is a small, quaint town called Hartland, population 3,223. There’s not much to Hartland – a road leading into town, another leading out. Where they intersect is Damon Hall, a 1915 brick construction that now houses the town offices. From Damon Hall, a country road, Route 12, snakes its way through a typical rural New England landscape; past a collection of cottages, farmhouses, a couple of demolition yards. Eventually the old highway crosses with another road, and there, next to a small antique shop, is an eye-catching, odd little structure with a mysterious past and an even more uncertain future.

Propped up on blocks, the rectangular unit, measuring approximately 15 feet by 30 feet, looks something like a funny little house. It’s yellow, with green trim. Around one corner hangs a drooping strand of Christmas lights. The roof of the structure is slightly rounded and, showing clearly on the front, left-hand side is a sign that reads “Famous for Food.” The odd-looking structure, it turns out, is a diner – quite an old one in fact. On its right-hand face is another sign, this one made of paper and attached by a few well-weathered strips of duct tape. The second sign offers a brief though somewhat hazy picture of the diner’s six-decade history. “This is the 1939 Worchester Lunch Car Company diner #747. Formerly Mindy’s Diner of Somerville, MA. Moved to Auburn, MA. Moved to Bolton, MA. Moved to Hartland, VT,” the sign reads.

It looked like any other morning during the past seven decades at the diner's familiar location along Route 6 at 740 Main Street South in the Middle Quarter Mall.

However, approximately four months ago, Bud Phillips decided it was time to move on. At 75-years-old, he no longer could handle the workload on a day-to-day basis at the diner.

Mr. Phillips has decided to sell the restaurant, a staple of the Woodbury community since 1934, and an even stronger family tradition dating back to its original owners - his parents - Al and Bea Phillips.

"I'll miss the people and the friends we've made over the years," he said. "The people are familiar, and they keep coming back because of the relationships we've made over the years."

The diner was originally located on Ben Sherman Hill and was called Phillips Dairy Cottage. It eventually moved to Watertown in 1941 after a fire burned down the original building.

Theater operator Butch Rigby stood in the middle of Minnesota Avenue, taking in the work being done on the facade of his Granada Theatre, when he heard a voice.

“Hey, man, what is this place?”

Turning, Rigby peered into a black SUV stopped at a traffic light. Inside two young Hispanic men were checking out the construction around the long-dark 77-year-old movie house.

“It’s a theater,” Rigby said. “It’s opening July 7 with the new ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie — with Spanish subtitles.”

His questioners looked at each other, grinned and shot Rigby a pair of thumbs-up.

“Very cool,” one said as they pulled away.

“And that,” said Rigby, “is my audience.”

It’s been 40 years since the Granada at 1019 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kan., has shown first-run films. Beginning Friday, the old movie house — listed on the National Register of Historic Places — reopens after standing empty for years.

It will bring first-run movies back to downtown Kansas City, Kan., a neighborhood left behind while the western half of Wyandotte County flourished. And Rigby has specifically focused on Kansas City’s growing Hispanic community.

He’ll book English-language films with Spanish subtitles or Spanish-language films with English subtitles. The last time Spanish-speaking moviegoers here had an area theater to call their own was the Tampico Theatre at 39th Street and Southwest Trafficway. After it closed in 1956, the Park in the Argentine district of Kansas City, Kan., began screening Mexican titles but phased that out in the early 1960s.

Remember drive-in theaters? I'm not sure why, but I started thinking about drive-ins and summer nights.

I know I plowed this ground a few years ago, but it's worth tilling again. Nostalgia never goes out of style; people always look back at better times.

It used to be there were drive-in theaters everywhere you went, those big screens dominating fields with speaker poles sprouting like skinny metallic corn stalks. Brilliant neon marquees lit up the night with names like "Majestic," "Sky Hi," "Starlight," "Tower," "Crossroads," "Longhorn," "Joy" and "Oasis."

I remember the 67 Drive-In at Texarkana (on the Arkansas side), the Longhorn Drive-In at New Boston down the road from DeKalb and, from my college days, the Trail Drive-In at Greenville, Texas. When I made my way to the promised land here in the Ozarks, the Starlite Drive-In was still in business at Gassville, where the McDonald's is now.

Troy, NY
According to our intrepid New York roadside reporter Mike Engle, the Miss Troy Diner has succumb to the ultimate fate - it is no more. Mike reports that when he drove by this past weekend, the diner was gone. No sign of it having been towed away, saved or moved.

Here's some further background on the Miss Troy. Accoring to Engle, the diner was a Brill, one of several, all in the NY Capital District, that were made by that company. The other "Miss" diners made by Brill were in Schenectady and Albany. They are long gone.

The Miss Troy was owned by three different people prior to 1990, then by several different owners. The diner was last run by the Martin's, who had the place sold out from under them, to the garage next door.

The attached photo by Mike shows the diners original skin, under the remuddling.

As we often say at times like this; sigh....

Tod Murphy had an idea for a restaurant that would serve reasonably priced food and locally grown produce and meats. His mission was to foster local agriculture, preserve small- to medium-size farms and reduce pollution by limiting the distance food traveled to market.

The Farmers Diner in Barre opened in 2002 and drew considerable media attention -- even a Japanese documentary team showed up. To as great a degree as possible, the diner served local produce, dairy products and meats. The corporation, The Farmers Daughter LLC, even bought a smokehouse that was going out of business to ensure that bacon, ham and sausage for the diner were processed locally.

Three years later the diner closed.

Murphy hasn't given up on the idea. Determined to learn from the first attempt, Murphy found a new location for a second diner. This one is in the southern Vermont town of Quechee and is set to open in August, a year after the Barre diner closed.

This time he's convinced he's on the right track and his dream of a chain of Farmers Diners, all regionally supplied, and a line of smokehouse products sold at supermarkets, will come to fruition.

"It was there to prove out the concept and take us to school on what we didn't know," Murphy said of the first diner.