By Alaine Griffin | Hartford Courant | Feb. 11, 2008

Biting wind gusts and single-digit temperatures didn't stop customers from lining up outside for the re-opening early Monday morning of O'Rourke's Diner, the Middletown icon destroyed in a fire nearly 18 months ago.

"It's been a year and a half since I've had his corned beef hash. That's way too long," Ethan Platt of Portland said as he waited first in line next to his buddy Matt Schickling, of Sturbridge, Mass.

"Setting my alarm at 3 a.m. was a little crazy but I knew it would be worth it," Schickling said minutes before the door opened to the Main Street diner that's been a popular restaurant and gathering place in Middletown since 1941.

Inside before opening, the mood was much different than the morning of Aug. 31, 2006, when startled waitresses and cooks ready to work arrived at the gutted and smoldering diner. Investigators determined a hamburger steamer that was left on overnight when the diner was closed triggered the fire.

On Monday, longtime waitresses Janine Janaki and Barbara Feegel hugged in between prepping the counter and tables and memorizing the diner's daily specials.

"I'm shaking I'm so nervous," Janaki said to Feegel, who has worked at O'Rourke's for 18 years.

Feegel, who admitted having a sleepless night, calmed Janaki's nerves.

"It's like riding a bike," Feegel said. "You'll be OK. But just yell to me and I'll be right there with you."

Feegel's supportive words were reminiscent of the words owner Brian O'Rourke and his colleagues have heard since the fire that threatened to put an end to an important part of Middletown's history.

O'Rourke, who grilled his first order at the family diner in 1962 and along with his cousin, purchased it from his Uncle John in 1977, did not have fire insurance. When loyal customers and O'Rourke's friends heard this, they quickly formed a rebuilding committee that conducted numerous fundraisers and sought donations of building materials and contracting work.

New Haven, CT
The landlord for the now-closed Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop is offering to keep the space vacant for two months to give supporters of “The Doodle” a chance to create a sustainable business plan.

But the offer from Tyco owner Michael Iannuzzi Sr. drew an accusation from Yankee Doodle operator Rick Beckwith that Iannuzzi “still refuses to change the unreasonable lease terms that initiated the (restaurant’s) financial problems.”

When Beckwith abruptly shut down Jan. 29 after 58 years of his family’s doing business on Elm Street, charges and denials erupted as to whether he had been victimized by high rent and added charges.

Beckwith and his many supporters, including Yale alumni from around the country, alleged Iannuzzi and his former Tyco partner, John Parker, charged an unreasonable rent as well as requiring him to pay property taxes and utility costs. Advertisement

But Iannuzzi, who continues to call himself “a friend and neighbor of the Beckwith famly,” has issued a three-page statement denying he contributed to the Yankee Doodle’s demise.

Yale University officials also have told Beckwith they are willing to discuss offering him a rental deal. But in brief conversations with the New Haven Register, Beckwith has seemed more interested in trying to return to the site where his grandfather, Lewis Beckwith Sr., began in 1950.

By Jesse Overall | The Wesleyan Argosy | Feb. 8, 2008

Power tools buzzed and hammers thwacked on a recent morning at O’Rourke’s Diner as workers busily prepared for the diner’s official opening next Monday, Feb. 11th.

The story of the beloved diner’s rise from the ashes of a midnight fire touched the entire Middletown community, spurring the creation of a diverse coalition that came together to help out in their hour of need.

“You talk about a melting pot, this diner was a melting pot,” said Lance, a manager at O’Rourke’s. “You’d have the mayor of Middletown sitting down eating breakfast and next to him you have a homeless person.”

The appreciation for the diner was apparent in the community’s reaction to the rebuilding effort.

“It’s been a monumental community effort,” said Jane McMillan, partner in the law firm Howard & McMillan, which helped coordinate the reconstruction process. “We’ve had hundreds of volunteers. Many contractors donated their time. Over 2,000 people have given money [to help cover the diner’s approximately $350,000 bill].”

New Haven, CT
Down, but not necessarily out. The grill is hot and the coffee is fresh at Mo Ali's diner this morning. But his heart was across town. His other diner has closed and is ready to be moved from the lot it's occupied for more than 50 years.

"Sure, I feel bad, but what can you do? Money gotta talk now," Ali, owner or Forbes Diner, said. Money from a Dunkin Donuts franchise. Mo says he had to accept their offer after years of struggling to keep Forbes going with slow business and high overhead costs. He laid off all his employees except for veteran waitress Bernadette Vella. "She's worked in both diners for more than 15 years," Vella said.

"The Forbes Diner really kinda like warms your hearts," Vella said. "You know what I mean? People from all over Connecticut have stopped there. We've had truck drivers, bus drivers. It's been really good in the past."

Forbes is one of two historic New Haven diners who has closed their doors in the last two weeks. The other is the Yankee Doodle. They recently closed their doors because of economic hard times.

There has been a huge outpouring of support to reopen the Doodle, while owner Rick Beckwith decides whether to revive the business. Many people are still holding out hope.

By Patrick Lee | Yales Daily News | Feb. 4, 2008

The Lancraft Fife and Drum Corps’ renditions of “Yankee Doodle” echoed several blocks from its namesake restaurant down Elm Street on Sunday afternoon, as Yale and New Haven saw evidence of the feverish alumni effort to save the Doodle.

Meanwhile, less than a week after the Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop closed, citing financial hardship, dreams of reopening the Doodle may already be less daunting than they once seemed. On Friday, Bruce Alexander, the University’s vice president and director of the Office of New Haven and State Affairs, offered to rent one of the University’s properties to owner Rick Beckwith to preserve his iconic institution.

“It’s a great New Haven institution,” Alexander told the Register. “We’re trying to contact the owner to see if he’d be interested in one of our properties.”

Alexander could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Beckwith told the New Haven Register on Friday that, while he is aware of the offer, he is not yet ready to respond.

As of Sunday morning, the fundraising efforts had garnered $3,785 in donations and $17,125 in merchandise — of which less than 30 percent will go toward saving the Doodle, since the remaining 70 percent is used to pay for merchandise and shipping. Estimated costs for renovation and implementation of a revised business plan are projected at $100,000.

By Tom Mooney | Providence Journal | Feb. 3, 2008

Thirty years now and he’s still looking for her.

He will be in a restaurant or department store when a clerk’s name tag grabs his attention:

Tara.

If she looks about the right age and is white — one of the few facts at his disposal — the retired police officer will pose the question he’s asked hundreds of times, always adjusting for the passage of years since the Blizzard of 1978.

“Are you 30 years old by any chance, because there was this little girl….”

You save someone’s life, Edmund Malloy has found, and you become bound to that person.

Whether you ever see her again or not.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. Edmund Malloy, 69, with thick silver hair, stands in a leather jacket in the window of the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Admiral Street, gazing out at Route 146 about a quarter-mile away.

His story … her story started out there on that Monday afternoon of Feb. 6, 1978.

It started as a nice day. It ended with the worst snowstorm in memory bearing down on Southeastern New England, eventually claiming 21 lives, paralyzing sections of the state for days under feet of snow and leaving a lasting imprint on the collective psyche.

Every big snowstorm since has been compared with it. None has surpassed it in drama.

“It was a hurricane of snow,” Malloy remembers.

Back then a diner stood where the doughnut shop is now. The Ever Ready Diner would become an oasis for hundreds of people stranded out on the highway, who, when their gasoline ran out, slogged through the drifts of snow that were slowly enveloping everything.

By Tim Hahn | Erie Times-News | Feb. 2, 2008

It was an albatross, really. A faded paint relic of a time when travel was by steam locomotive, and a sleeping room could be had for the coins jingling in one's pocket.

But the Conneaut Lake Park's Dreamland Ballroom, a ridiculously oversized and wheelchair-inaccessible gathering spot that stretched over nearly half of the old amusement park's midway, was still seen as a valuable asset by those working to breathe new life into the troubled resort.

The dream was lost Friday morning, when a smoky fire that quickly grew into a blazing inferno leveled the nearly century-old structure.

Overseers of the 116-year-old park on the western shore of Conneaut Lake said they couldn't begin to guess Friday at the value of what the fire consumed. But everything will be a loss be-cause there was no fire insurance on Dreamland Ballroom, said Jack Moyers, president of Conneaut Lake Park's 13-member board of trustees.

"All of the structures were grossly uninsured even from the onset," Moyers said in a statement Friday morning.

The losses, in addition to the second-floor dancing pavilion, included a half-dozen ground-level food stands, a game arcade, restroom facilities, the park's maintenance complex and a warehouse full of parts and supplies.

The motors that powered most of Conneaut Lake Park's amusement rides were inside the maintenance complex and warehouse, and all were lost, said George Deshner, a park board member who oversaw its day-to-day operations.

Spared by the fire as it burned through the north side of the park's midway were two game stands and the Log Cabin gift shop, which sit west of where the Dreamland Ballroom complex once stood. The gift shop, formerly a restaurant, predates the 1909 ballroom by seven years, according to park history.

Farmington, ME
The Farmington Diner, looking cheerless and solitary, stands shuttered on a construction site on Main Street as heavy equipment excavates around it to make way for a new Rite Aid drug store.

The attached trailer at the rear of the diner is now gone, as are the addition and outbuildings. The former C.N. Brown Co. gas station and Quizno's Subs on the property have also been flattened.

Bruce Carrier, the developer for the new drug store, loathe to demolish what is considered a Farmington landmark, said this week he gave the diner's owner, Russell Wood, 30 days after the sale of the property to move the former eatery. That deadline is Feb. 3 and there are still no firm offers.

"We would love to see it moved right now but we realize the diner is an important piece of Farmington," Carrier said.

"I don't want to demolish it and I would be willing to work with anyone interested in taking it. And I would be willing to wait if it means we can find that special person who wants it," he said.

There are a few interested parties in the wings, including the diner's former owner, Mike Grimanis, and his wife, Rose, who are considering relocating it temporarily to their Prescott Street property a block away, said Wood, a contractor in Florida.

According to Wood, a woman from out of town is also interested in buying it but she is still looking for a place to put it.

By Alaine Griffin | Hartford Courant | Jan. 23, 2008

Middletown, CT
Newly stacked clear glass blocks filter beams of sunlight that hit the bright white walls. Brushed-nickel light fixtures with the manufacturer's stickers still attached are as shiny as the stainless steel molding.

There's a sparkle these days inside O'Rourke's Diner. As promised, the community is helping to restore this regional gem that was destroyed by a fire on Aug. 31, 2006.

By next month, customers could be eating the restaurant's signature steamed cheeseburgers.

"He's still pinching himself," Jora Davis said recently about his boss, Brian O'Rourke, owner of the 67-year-old downtown diner that O'Rourke took over from his uncle. "He just can't wait to get back here and make people happy."

When loyal customers and friends of O'Rourke learned that he did not carry fire insurance, many worried that the historic diner would become part of the city's past. City leaders also worried that the end of O'Rourke's would mean that Middletown would lose an important anchor in its North End, a section of the city that has struggled with crime, poverty and empty storefronts, but has recently experienced a neighborhood revival with the opening of a new 96-unit apartment complex.

Though O'Rourke — a master chef but self-admitted poor businessman — faced some criticism for his lack of insurance for the diner, supporters with stories about his good deeds and generosity in the community rallied around him and the diner he made into a back-road culinary icon that's been profiled in books and publications nationwide.