An era is coming to an end in Chelmsford as the owners of Skip's restaurant close their doors after more than six decades.

The restaurant has been a family-owned fixture at 116 Chelmsford St. since Stephen Burliss and Fred Gefteas Sr. opened it in 1946. Burliss's and Gefteas's sons, George Burliss and Fred Gefteas Jr., said a difficult economy forced them to sell the property to a local developer.

"The economy is hurting us everywhere -- from paper goods to food goods, to insurance to the utilities. I mean, if I told my father now that we were paying between $7,000 and $9,000 a month for electricity, he'd say close the place," Fred Gefteas said.

Through the decades, the restaurant built a faithful customer base with its "American Yankee cuisine" -- traditional home-style cooking. Gefteas said the 2008 economy is very different than it was 62 years ago, when the diner first opened.

"We are not happy with, you know, leaving the place. I mean, I grew up here. I grew up in Chelmsford," Gefteas said. "I think they took me here before I went home after the hospital."

About 60 or so employees will be displaced by the sale.

"It is going to be a sad time. Very sad. We are like family here. Everyone is going to be very upset," waitress Kathy Wolff said.

The developer, Robert Walker, plans to build a new village-style strip mall that will hold a restaurant, coffee house and bank on the property.

"There are strip malls all over this town and you go a litter farther and you have Westford, and there are strip malls all over there, too," customer Jim Levine said.

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