By Herb Meeker | Herald & Review | January 18, 2007

Mattoon, IL
Tom Clark fell in love with the Bluebird Diner when he first laid eyes on it.

So, he and his stepbrother John Sebeck from Fayette County, Pa., bought it. Now they are preparing a new nest for the Mattoon diner along the National Road south of Pittsburgh.

"When we found out it was available, we drove to Illinois. It took 10 hours. It was exactly what we were looking for. It will go behind our drive-in theater, which is one of the last ones along the National Pike or U.S. 40. We had wanted to buy a diner for years," Clark said Thursday afternoon.

Clark and Sebeck are crazy about the days when people pulled up in wide cars to enjoy an outdoor movie as the sun was setting on the horizon or climbed into booths or swivel chairs in brightly colored diners.

Now they can offer the perfect way to recall or discover the good old days along the country's first federally funded roadway, dating back 200 years, he said.

"We'll be offering the whole experience now: a dinner and movie," said Clark, who also co-owns a Radio Shack store in Pennsylvania.

The new site for the Bluebird Diner will be along a stretch of the National Pike between Uniontown and Brownsville about 35 miles south of Pittsburgh.

"We were thinking we'd buy an old diner and refurbish it," he said. "But with this one, most everything is up to code. It will take very little work."

The Bluebird Diner opened on Marshall Avenue several years ago as a replica of a diner from the 1950s. It included booths, swivel chairs at a counter, metal menu holders, tile flooring, block glass and a stainless steel exterior. There also were pictures and posters of celebrities from the 1950s.

The diner also has a little history. It was one of the many investments of Omega Trust and Trading. Clyde Hood and several Omega executives were tried on federal fraud charges after an extensive investigation by federal, state and local investigators.

Omega operations took $30 million from investors across the country and in foreign countries with little returned to most of them.

The diner was sold for $260,000 a few years ago through an Internet sale of confiscated Omega properties under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Marshals Service. It sat idle for years until the Pennsylvanian businessmen signed on the dotted line.

Clark and Sebeck won't say exactly what they paid for the diner with a checkered floor and past. "Well, let's say we paid enough they made a profit," he said.

Originally published online here: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2007/01/19/news/local_news/1020566.txt