Here is a photo of mine, of the Venus Diner, shortly before it was moved from Gibsonia, PA to Cleveland, Ohio by Steve Harwin of Diversified Diners. It is for sale on their website.
Here’s how it appears, more recently, awaiting restoration in Ohio.
Some more pictures of it, taken when it was open, can be found here.
According to the Butte city webpage, the M+M has been open since 1890. It is half lunch counter and half bar, the bar being the counter on your left as you walk in, the lunch counter being the one on your right. In the back is gaming.
Food at the cafe is excellent, and as it is cooked behind the counter, you get a show as you wait. The stools are a type I have never seen before, with a vertical “twist” ripple to their top. The cafe logo is embossed in their seat covers.
We were in Butte, working the National Folk Festival, and hit up the cafe twice, once during the three day festival, and once a day after. While the event was in town, the M&M was standing room only. It was so full and swamped that we gave up. The second time was different, slower, once the festival had left town, and it was back to mostly locals.
I love the juxtaposition of the M&M and the R&R. The Neon, the hand painted sign on the side of the building and the lettering in the trimwork up top all proudly announce the name of the cafe. The stainless facade adds some sparkle to the old brick building. The current neon was added sometime after 1939. A different piece is found in this 1939 picture of the cafe on Shorpy. The town doesn’t look all that different, though than it did 70 odd years ago.
We visited Pip’s on the same trip, and after a few wrong turns and a little unplanned exploring, finally found it. It’s an interesting location, on a small road, directly under a bridge, across from some old industrial buildings. It has been remodeled inside and out, the exterior now covered with stone, and some of the windows filled in.
Pip’s is a ’20s model, of indeterminate manufacture, possibly Tierney, possibly O’Mahony, it’s difficult to say. It feels more like a social club than a diner, in that we were the only people in the place who were not regulars. Most times there is at least someone else who is either passing through, or a local who occasionally drops by. Not here, at least during out stay. Food was good, and cooked up on the grill behind the counter. We, unfortunately, missed the last of the hamburgers, we were told they were out of meat when we ordered, though while we waited for our food, the last couple patties were cooked up for regulars who came in several minutes after we got our food. I had the chili.
An ad for a Tierney diner of the period, similar to what Pip’s would have looked like when new.
Here’s the copy, which I typed up from my copy of that ad. Gives you a look into what was being pitched when the diner was new.
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No matter what your present occupation, or where you are located- if you have been seeking YOUR opportunity; if you have been anxious to get into business for yourself- to be your own Boss- or if you are in business and dissatisfied with its results; if you want to make more money than you ever made in your life- if you are willing to work and win success- then a Tierney diner is YOUR opportunity. It’s a clean, respectable PROFITABLE business for YOU- Every day in the year!
You would be one of the most independent men in your community. Your money would be turned over quickly. 30% – 40% of each days receipts would be your NET profit! You would have a strictly cash business. No bad accounts. No collections to make
The Dining Car business is spreading fast. Men like yourself, and with no more experience at the start, are getting rich in it. You can do it, too!
A Total capital of $3000 – will set you up in this business- provide the first payment on your car and leave enough to install it on location, open it up and start your daily receipts coming in- and many successful operators have done it on less.
YOU CAN START
The Dining Car Business in your own town.
The Tierney Real Estate Department checks up your location, or obtains one for you, thus assuring a proper business building location for your car.
We train you for success, just as we have trained hundreds of other operators of Tierney Diners.
You can take advantage of our Training School, if you desire.
Tierney service helps you in all details of operation, providing reliable and experienced chefs, and other employees, if desired, and supervises and guides your management, if needed, until you are sufficiently experienced to assure success by yourself.
no Tierney Dining Car located and operated in accordance with Tierney Service and Instruction need ever fail, for when you purchase a Tierney Diner you get back of you thirty years of successful experience in this business.
Tierney Service makes Monthly Payment Plan possible. The Lunch Car business is essentially a worker’s business. It has not been built up by capitalists, although it has created capital for its operators- but has won out through the energy and close attention to business of men who with a small amount of money to start with have followed up that moderate capital with an unlimited supply of conscientious, faithful work. That is what makes the Lunch Car business such a sound, dependable business to be engaged in; it is built on foundations of individual industry and common honesty.
“Fully ninety-five per cent of the hundreds who have won success and independence in this business have started with very little money, so the plan had to be devised to help these men get there cars as well as stand by them until they had made a success of the business. In other words, after you have made your first payment down, the car will pay the balance.”
Wherever you see a Tierney dining car you will find a man who is making money.
This portable restaurant is delivered on its own wheels to its permanent location, where connections are made for water, sewer, gas or electricity
Just the Way they look inside: Tiled floors and walls, stool porcelain, oak tops with nickel rim, counters marble or black walnut. Back of counter complete kitchen, tiled ice box, equipped with most modern type of range, short order stove; steam table, nickeled coffee urns, hot water heater. The last word in brightness and cleanliness.
If YOU owned a Tierney Dining Car like this, $5000 to $10000 should be your YEARLY PROFITS
I visited this one the same day as Peppi’s, on a diner run up to Pittsburgh. We hit it a little before the chili, which they are famous for, was ready, unfortunately, but the same day that it got a large spread in the local newspaper.
The Gatto Cycle Diner was built in 1949 by the Jerry O’Mahony Company. It is the same model as the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring, and like the Tastee, the original, matching factory kitchen, visible in the pictures of it as Digger’s, is no longer in existence. It is now attached to a Harley Davidson dealership, and is really secondary to the motorcycle shop.
It was abandoned for some time, and was in fairly poor shape by the time it was moved to Tarentum. Though it is obvious, at least to experienced eyes, that a good deal of the diner has been remodeled, it isn’t overblown, and looks essentially the part.
Here is the diner as it was in its original location, in Butler, PA as Digger’s Diner.
Photo Courtesy of TheAmericanRoadside
Photo courtesy of TheAmericanRoadside
And as it was between locations.
Here are some shots I took of the Yankee Diner last April. I was stopped by a Massachusetts State Patrol officer while here, not while I was walking back through the woods, not while I was taking pictures or peering through windows, no, according to the officer, I was stopped for looking suspicious, because I was wearing a long overcoat (it was really cold out) and sunglasses.
The diner was/ is closed, but it’s a nice example of an old Worcester lunch car.
The interior. Please note the axe at the far end.
And here’s something, back in the woods that’s of note- the original neon
Here’s a before and after shot.
late 1930s
2006
Photo Copyright Spencer Stewart
It’s not much to look at on the outside.
But sure enough, inside is a classic diner, a barrel roof model. Any guesses as to the manufacturer? Unfortunately, this is the best picture I could get when we were there. My initial gut reaction would be that it’s a silk city, because of the curve at the ends, but I can’t remember seeing silk cities with that kind of vent hood or tile pattern.
Peppi’s is a “National” diner built in the 1940s. It was originally Scotty’s Diner. It is currently operating as a location of Peppi’s Old Tyme Sandwich Shop, but it is still very much a diner in setup and feel. Most importantly, the food is still cooked behind the counter. When I was there, I had one of the best cheesesteaks I had ever eaten. The food is truly delicious. The diner itself is a little rough around the edges, as you can see, especially the outside panels, but it has character. 
The interior is a beauty of design, with the geometric patterns in the formica, the stainless work, seen here, photo by Brian Butko, or the winged clock, seen here. It’s interesting that the door frames are still very old style dark stained wood with molding. The diner has original tiny bathrooms to the right, as you can see in the exterior shot from the window delete.
The diner is located at 7619 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
The main diner is an old one, a mid ’20s model, very small, more a stationary lunch wagon than anything else. Inside, the wheelwells are still visible. It’s all stools inside the diner, but seating has been supplemented with an addition, at an angle to the diner, off to the right. There’s a great neon sign out front.
This 1926 Ward and Dickinson located at 40 E. Main St.
And then there’s this building, also in Westfield, NY. It’s very reminiscent of a small lunch wagon, both in size, and in the barrel roof. Closson was based out of Westfield from 1912-1917, but it doesn’t have the monitor roof that they did. Whatever it is, it’s an interesting building.
I visited the Crossroads Dinor back in March of 2007. The Dinor (a regional spelling of diner) was originally a trolley, built in 1913, decommissioned some time later, and hauled to this site and converted in 1929. Outside, many of its distinctive trolley features still remain, like the curved front and rear and the bumpers. Inside, the trolley section is not used much anymore, the main focus of the restaurant is the spacious, yet homey dining room attached on the back. And its no wonder. Though the trolley is very interesting architecturally, with its curved ceiling, woodwork, and green windows, it’s really very small, especially since they have bumped the kitchen out into it, making an already narrow structure even more narrow.
The diner is located at 101 W Plum St, Edinboro, PA, on the corner of Rt. 6 and Erie.
Diner Hunter 