The landmark Rosie's Diner and three other diner cars will be sold at auction Jan. 31 as owner and artist Jerry Berta again looks toward retirement.

Byron Township-based Miedema Auctioneering will oversee the auction of the diner, 4500 14 Mile Road NE, made famous by a paper towel commercial.

In the long-running ad campaign, actress Nancy Walker, who played Rosie the waitress used Bounty, "the quicker picker upper," to clean up spills on the diner's counter.

Berta opened Rosie's in 1991 after transporting the diner car from New Jersey and has been operating it himself since last spring.

Don't plan to attend the auction intent on buying your favorite bar stool. Berta wants to sell the property in one piece as a going concern.

The property also includes Rosie's Bar and Grill, previously known as the Deluxe Diner, and The Diner Store.

Berta has offered to rent the Diner Store, which he uses as an art studio.

Berta sold Rosie's on a land contract in 2002, but the Rosie's Web site said he had to foreclose on the restaurant in March.

At its peak, according to the Web site, the diner complex was attracting more than 200,000 customers a year, driven by nostalgia and a quest for old-fashioned food such as meatloaf, and liver and onions. Before being sold in 2001, the restaurant had sales of $780,000 a year, the auction listing said.

When Berta last sold the restaurants, they were listed for $790,000. That price was for less land and minus the Diner Store building, however.

The 4.5-acre property and buildings were appraised at $680,000 in 1998 without the liquor license, the Web site said.

Originally published online here: http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1136389547304490.xml&coll=6

For more info on the sale, check out this link.