The Standard Times | June 17, 2005

It happened on a Tuesday at the Nest Diner, a gray thunder-clad night outside, but warm and friendly within.

Owner Randy St. John had dinner all prepared, featuring an inspired menu that Robert B. Parker's super sleuth Spenser would have undoubtedly approved. The meal was literally lifted from the pages of Mr. Parker's novels.

The Miss Portland Diner may remain in limbo through the summer.

It has been nearly three months since the City Council split 4-4 on a proposal to sell the 56-year-old diner and a small city-owned lot to Michel "Sal" Salvaggio, a former restaurant owner.

Portland officials have since put the brakes on the sale, prompted by questions about Salvaggio's business history and the possibility that other Bayside development projects may need some of the land that was promised for the diner.

Maine's oldest diner, a landmark where mayors and mill workers have eaten side by side for nearly eight decades, is under contract to be sold.

The 15-stool Palace Diner has been on the market for nearly a year, according to owners Rick and Jo Bernier. A prospective buyer recently placed it under contract after the price was reduced to $125,000.

The diner has had only four owners since Louis Lachance of Kennebunk got into the diner business with his brother-in-law, Orville Pollard, whose family built the diner at their shop in Lowell, Mass. In 1927 the two trucked the diner to Biddeford, then a booming mill town.

Union Station officials have asked the Bistate Commission for $1.05 million to improve the soon-to-open railroad museum and clear the way for a Harvey House Diner in the historic building.

The commission, which oversees the tax that was paid for Union Station's renovation, didn't take action Wednesday night. If approved, this would leave $70,000 of the $121.7 million raised by the tax.

It's getting hard for an honest freak to make a living in New York. This is both a cultural and economic fact.

It is also the plight of Johnny Fox, a professional sword swallower and expert in sleight of hand, who until this winter was the impresario behind the Freakatorium, a museum of sideshow curiosities at 57 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side.

In January, Mr. Fox's rent went up and he had to close. Now he has moved his wonders to a farmhouse in Connecticut where the only thing they collect these days is dust.

The old Dixie Bros. grill now has a downtown address after a truck slowly hauled the diner to its new home Wednesday night, backing up traffic all along the route.

Owners hope to open the restaurant by Aug. 1, said partner Paul Van Bockern.

The move from 26th Street and Shirley Avenue took the 100-foot diner down a path that blocked traffic on all streets it crossed. It took more than an hour to move it down Shirley Avenue to Interstate 29 and down 10th Street all the way to Phillips Avenue.

The odds clearly were stacked against Tom Wahl becoming a successful restaurateur when he bought a franchised ice cream and root beer stand and plunked it in Avon.

The population was sparse — 4,400 in Avon and 44,000 in all of Livingston County.

But it was 1955 and Wahl, a 23-year-old just out of the Army with a young wife and a child on the way, took a gamble. He bought an acre of land with 250 feet fronting Routes 5 and 20 and set up a Twin Kiss stand. He had taken a job selling Twin Kiss franchises in New York state a few months earlier, and he became his first customer.

Essentially, the photographs were dictated by his stomach.

Stephan Schacher's plan was to pause on his road trip across North America to photograph every single meal he ate along with each waitress who served him for his book, Plates and Dishes: The Food and Faces of the Roadside Diner. The most important part of the plan was to avoid fast-food chains and find restaurants offering hospitality described as family, traditional, and/or country.

Carter Lake, Iowa - A Colorado landmark has found a second home in this Omaha suburb. Named Shake, Rattle and Roll when it was open in Sterling, the vintage 1950s-style diner assumed its new identity as the Hollywood Diner in April.

Owner Larry Richling said the restaurant's first 30 days have been wildly successful. So successful, in fact, that a second diner is on its way.