Lake George, NY
The village of Lake George is planning to give the new Prospect Mountain Diner a hero’s welcome when it returns this fall.

Restaurateur Art Leonhard said he has purchased a new silver diner to replace the historic Route 9 diner that was destroyed by fire in May.

Leonhard said he looked at original diners for sale in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio before settling on a brand new replica made by the Dinermite company in Atlanta, Ga. Work to customize the diner for

Leonhard will likely take until October, he said.

“It’s going to be the same,” he said. “It’s going to be the same location and same staff.”

Lake George Mayor Robert Blais said he is planning to hold a parade for the return of the diner.

The old Prospect Mountain Diner was a shiny, bullet-style structure built in 1950. The original owner, Phil Patenaude, brought the diner to Lake George and established the Point Diner on the corner of routes 9 and 9L, where Water Slide World is now.

When Route 9 was expanded from two lanes to four, the diner lost some of its space, and in the mid-1960s it was moved a bit further north on Route 9, in front of the Lake George Bowl. In 1968, Leonhard bought it and renamed it the Prospect Mountain Diner.

Blais said the celebration to welcome the diner will have a 1950s theme, complete with muscle cars from that decade.

Dinermite, a 49-year-old company, makes about 30 to 40 diners a year and has shipped diners all over the world. Dinermite owner David Bernstein said Leonhard ordered the “Silver Eagle” stainless steel model.

“It is a beautiful diner,”

Bernstein said. “Your eyeballs will pop out when you see it.”

Leonhard said he just wants to get back into the restaurant. He refuses to get excited until his diner rolls back into town, he said. Blais said summer and year-round residents will be excited to hear the diner will be back.

“It was a traditional place in town where hundreds of patrons went there on a daily basis,” Blais said. “Visitors are now coming up to find that it’s gone. They continue to ask me daily, ‘what happened to the diner?' ”

Originally published online here: http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/07/27/news/local/be9d436dab95ff7f8525732500131f52.txt