By Daniel DeBolt | Mountain View Voice | May8, 2008

Mountain View, CA
A year ago, local auto shop owner Tom Mertl announced his plan to truck a 1930s prefab diner to Mountain View from Massachusetts. The diner has arrived, and a long restoration has commenced.

Mertl has devoted an entire bay of his auto shop to the 576-square-foot 1938 Sterling diner, which looks like a cross between an Airstream trailer and an old rail car. The only other prefab diner like it in the Bay Area is the Fog City Diner in San Francisco, which is a reproduction.

In Mertl's shop, the untrained observer would have no idea that a small building is being restored. It's in numerous bits and pieces, including its Honduran mahogany window frames and porcelain covered metal panels. But soon this "jigsaw puzzle" of a diner will be complete.

Once restored, it will be assembled in front of Fred's Place, the popular bar on the corner of Old Middlefield Way and Middlefield Road. Mertl's auto shop, B&L Auto, is at the rear of Fred's, and Mertl owns the whole property with his brother and another partner.

A self-described picky eater, Mertl plans to serve "down-home, family-cooked meals" in the diner from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the week. He hopes to open it as early as the summer of 2009.

Mertl bought the old diner for only $7,300. For that price, he got plenty of rotted wood he needs to replace, especially in the once shapely roof, which had been covered by layers of shingles and hasty repairs as the diner was used almost nonstop for the better part of a century.

"If the landlord hadn't taken the land out from under them, it would still be functioning to this day," he said.

The diner was designed by Bertram Harley, who Mertl says was part of the famous Harley Davidson family. Like an old Harley motorcycle, many major pieces have easily survived through decades of use, such as the chrome bar tools and the stainless steel hood for the stove and fryer. He's managed to find some important missing pieces, like the large stainless steel 1930s Hercules brand "coffee urn."

While he is highly experienced as an auto mechanic, Mertl says he is learning woodworking as he goes. He's also developed a new obsession with vintage power tools, and now has a collection of saws and shapers made by Walker-Turner during the same era the diner was built.

"They don't make them like they used to," he said.

Mertl says he works on the diner an hour a day. He's already come close to finishing the 12 floor sections. He hopes to finish the 30 modular wall sections within one month, doing one a day. The most time-consuming part is setting up an efficient system for the work.

Mertl is looking to join a woodworking club this month, and hopefully get a master woodworker involved in the project -- in exchange for free food from the diner of course.

Originally published online here: http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=585