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.