Albany, NY
The Miss Albany Diner -- the tiny restaurant with a big following -- is up for sale.

Owners Cliff and Jane Brown are ready to retire, and they're looking for someone to take over the landmark business. They're asking $350,000 for the pint-sized structure.

The Miss Albany, featured in films and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been on the market in a word-of-mouth sort of way for months. Now the Browns are going public.

"It's official," Jane Brown said Wednesday, sitting in one of the diner's six booths. "Very official."

The Miss Albany, at 893 Broadway, is in an industrial section of North Albany, about a frisbee toss from Nipper's tilted head and a half-mile north of downtown Albany.

It's one of those city neighborhoods primed for a tantalizing development boom that always seems just around the corner.

The diner, like the neighborhood, draws all types: Yuppies and factory workers, rich and poor, old-timers and hipsters -- all in search of a cup of coffee, a warm meal and...

"A friend," Jane says. "They just need somebody to listen to them."

The Browns this year are celebrating their 20th year as owners of the Miss Albany. But Cliff is 82 and Jane is 75 -- and they're eager to move on. Their son Bill, the restaurant's cook, isn't interested in taking over.

The Browns are looking for the right person to take the diner into its next phase. Jane Brown says the business is profitable, though it has hardly made the couple rich.

"I will miss the people," she says. "I will not miss the work."

The Miss Albany is adjacent to Wolff's Biergarten, the popular nightspot. And its owner, Matt Baumgartner, is one of the diner's big fans.

"Anytime I have friends visit that's one of my go-to places," he said. "And everybody leaves loving it."

The Miss Albany was built in 1941 and remains authentic to its time -- so authentic that it received a preservation award from the Historic Albany Foundation, which noted that diner has never undergone a character-robbing remodeling.

It has kept its charm.

"It just feels like a good, old-fashioned diner," Baumgartner said. "They don't make diner cars like that anymore."

Originally published online here: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=864806&category=BUSINESS