September-October History Post

Falling behind already. This month's post comes from Utica, NY. In Utica, there was a Bixler diner that came into town in October of 1931. It is not known where this diner went after this location, as it was shortly repossessed. Utica had a Bixler that lasted into the 1950s on Genesee St., so possibly this is what became of this diner.
This diner was located at 314 LaFayette, and right across the street at 313 was the Elgin Diner. The Elgin was a ca. 1923 O'Mahony that was hooked into a larger building that also housed a bar. The diner may have been called the Wilcroft Lunch at one time also. In the late 1930s, the O'Mahoyn was replaced by a Sterling diner. the O'Mahony was incorrectly identified as an interurban trolley car, even in the 1930s.
Next time, we will look at another Utica advertisement. I will keep the manufacturer's name in suspense.

Want to buy a diner?

The Rainbow Diner in Woodlawn, just south of Buffalo on NY Route 5 is for sale. We have not checked on the price of the diner, but if you're truly interested, you could call the phone number to the left. The phone number is 716-854-5943.

We also stopped at the Auburn Diner and found a very busy diner. We had not been to the diner in maybe 5 years, so it was log overdue.

August History post.

One more verified Ward & Dickinson. [past]

I have known about a Ward & Dickinson existing in Palmyra due to a postcard, but knew little else. The historian did not know of this diner. Fortunately, I found this July 6, 1950 newspaper article.
I believe that this article may be the perfect article to explain the brief history of Ward & Dickinson, and why so many of these small diners do not exist today.
At one time, Ward & Dickinson diners were top of the line. They had a couple of booths, ready for that family who was on the road, and needed a place to eat. Especially people who did not like stools, but really did not want to go into a full blown restaurant, or deal with city traffic. But even by as early as 1930s, booths and tables were becoming ever increasingly popular. Downtown diners could survive with stools, but diners out on the road needed booths for those families who were traveling. The truckers and such were happy at stools, but not many families liked stools.
As the 1940s rolled around, diners were ever increasing in size, especially in width. some diners were even sold in two pieces. In some cases, this allowed for dining rooms to be added. Plus, this also meant bathrooms, something tat did not come with any Ward & Dickinsons. So by the 1940s, Wardies were being viewed as small and cramped diners. Not as many people wanted them, and they were becoming tougher to maintain and make a profit in. This article tells that story perfectly.

Some new diners in the works

Wappingers Falls - DeRaffele is currently building a diner to be located on US Rt 9w in Wappingers Falls, just south of the junction with I-84. It has been two months since we have checked in with the diner, so for all we know, it may be in Wappingers Falls by now.


Glens Falls/Queensbury - The latest is that a modular diner is hopefully coming to exit 18 of I-87 just north of Glens Falls in Queensbury.
The article can be found here.

The diner would be owned by the Pilarinos family, who also own the Ambrosia Diner in Catskill.
From the way the photos look, it would seem that DeRaffele or maybe United from Philly will build this diner.

July's History of the Month

This is the first of a hopeful monthly post to keep this blog worthwhile.

The inaugural post deals with speculation. While speculation and intention do give us a really good view into what could have been, it also throws us down wrong roads. But it also reminds researchers that on occasion, newspapers are incorrect.
This June 1930 newspaper article mentions that Louis Bakery, the proprietor of the Crescent Diner in Ogdensburg had intentions to start a new and grander diner. Some background first. The Crescent Diner was a used Ward and Dickinson diner, numbered 69. The diner was built in July of 1926 and spent about 3 years doing business in Watertown, NY. So this particular diner was a basic 30 foot model. Around the time of this article was published a new Ward & Dickinson, to be known as the Miss Ogdensburg Diner was coming into Ogdensburg. This new diner was a 40 foot deluxe model. Perhaps this new diner was already in town and Bakery thought that he needed a new, larger diner in order to compete with this new diner? Or, maybe the writer had Bakery confused with someone else. Whichever is the actual story, we will never know the true story. But this article does give us a look at a northern New York town and its Ward & Dickinson diners.

We are still updating

Unfortunately there are so many different places to update on NYDiners.com and offline, that every places is not being updated.
But a list of changes to the diner book can be found here. The biggest updates are that the Chuck Wagon Diner has opened and Dan's Diner in Spencertown has reopened and is doing well.
The Executive Diner in Hawthorne has has the facade around the front door "updated" probably by DeRaffele. The American Dream Diner in Orangeburg was built by the United Diner Co. of Philly in 2008 or 2009. Dean Smith has bought the Penn Yan Diner.
DeRaffele is building a new diner to be placed in Wappingers Falls. Shown here in May, the diner was in the process of being built at DeRaffele's factory in New Rochelle. Thanks goes out to Dinerhistory.com for the initial news about this diner.

Two story diner in Roslyn

You can see some of the story here from Roadside Online.

I hope to visit this diner in one or two months.