Kuppy’s was built in 1938 by Ward and Dickinson. Despite it being bricked over, the diner is nicely preserved inside and has excellent food.
Another Ward and Dickinson
Kuppy’s Diner – Middletown, PA
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Tag Archives: Pennsylvania
Terminal Luncheonette – Willow Grove, PA
Here are some photos from a couple years back of the Terminal Luncheonette of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Old backlit plastic sign. Missing second half of the arrow?
Brick construction with flat roof and overhang.
Excellent hot roast beef sandwich.
Double Horseshoe counter
Photo of a photo of the area in the late ’30s
Philly Diners
These photos were sent to me by my father, who recently took a trip with musician Barry Louis Polisar to Philadelphia to visit Nancy Heller, Professor of Art History at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.
Some interior shots of the Melrose Diner before it gets re-done. The impending remodel was confirmed by staff at the diner.
This site has a good exterior photo.
The clock which used to hang above the Melrose counter until the mural was installed, I believe sometime in the 1970s. I bought and restored the clock after finding it listed on ebay several years ago.
Polock Johnny’s Polish Sausage- Baltimore, Maryland
Broad Street and Tasker. Tavern neon – Philadelphia
Museo Del Jamon – Ham Museum
Broad Street Diner, an old Fodero
Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike
On Monday, my friend and I loaded up the car and made the two hour drive to Breezewood, PA, a “Traveler’s Oasis”, the “Town of Motels”.
My fifteen year old bike rack popped a few of the mounting hooks along the way, but the bikes were still there when I pulled into the gravel parking lot at the Pike2Bike trail head.
I’d found out about this trip in a bit of an unusual way. Earlier in the year, my next door neighbor in my dorm had been listening to a Bloodhound Gang song on repeat. She showed me the video, and what caught my attention was the location where it was shot. A little bit of googling later, I’d found one of the many websites about the abandoned Pennsylvania turnpike. I emailed my friend about it, and plans were set in motion.
Not too soon after starting out, we spotted the first tunnel, Rays Hill Tunnel, the shorter of the two. We climbed to the top of the tunnel, climbed down a metal ladder, and in through a broken window. We found ourselves in the ventilation room, with its two large ventilation fans. We explored a bit in the ventilation shafts, which I must say is one of the most frightening places I’ve been. They’re claustrophobic, pitch black, and echo and amplify all sounds, the shuffling of our feet and the dripping of water filtering through the hill. We made our way through the two other stories of the building, down the rusted metal staircases, and exited through a broken out section of the ground floor door.
Ventilation shafts
Rusty metal and broken glass. What a turn on.
We pressed onwards to Sideling Hill Tunnel, the longer of the two, at 1.3 miles long. You can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel when you enter, and then when you finally do, it never seems to get any closer. The headlights we had installed on our bikes, supplemented by large flashlights didn’t begin to illuminate the place. You could barely see the pavement in front of you to dodge the chunks of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling of the tunnel. We explored both ends of the tunnel, and ate lunch when we arrived at the far end. All the ventilation rooms were the same, aside from the graffiti.
From there, it wasn’t far to the old travel plaza that once was the site of a Howard Johnson’s Restaurant, and the turnaround point.
Passed this guy along the way. My first thought was- hey- let’s get them off the highway. Then I realized where I was.
Cindy’s – New Eastern Market- York, PA
We stopped at 201 Memory Lane, York, PA for breakfast yesterday at Cindy’s restaurant. It’s a nice old family restaurant. Two tone brown and green tile floors, green formica counter. I had the special of the day, cream chipped beef on toast. I added a side of homefries (cream chipped beef over everything. Yum.) and a cup of coffee. Dad went the pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast route. Delicious and fast on all fronts.
Overheard some great counter chatter, “Obama- more like Osama- you think them rhyming is just a coincidence?”. That goes up there with the half hour conversation amongst farmers overheard at a Perkins concerning the durability of different jeans brands, the man [potentially] on the run from police over a domestic dispute at Lancaster’s Neptune diner several years ago, and one about drinking formaldehyde at a dive in Virginia.
Fortified with a great breakfast, we headed down the road to Reading, PA.
I’m not sure as to the date on this one.
Diner Slides- 1976-1988
Some more from the archives, in no particular order.
Short Stop Diner, now Irene’s pupusas. Wheaton, MD
It’s a 1956 Kullman. The neon was nearly as big as the diner itself, but has since disappeared.
Then:
Now:
Diner- Front Royal, VA
It’s a 1956 Mountain View. Front Royal used to be a hotbed of diners. It had this one, Nick’s Good Food diner, the Do-nut dinette, and another ’50s stainless model. The other three have been knocked down, and this one’s now a used car dealer.
Now:
Frost Diner- Warrenton, VA
The Frost is a 1955 O’Mahony.
Inside
Counter
A sign of the times- Disco Fashion T-shirts
Pork Chop- $1.25, Fried Chicken $1.75
Tastee Diner- Silver Spring, MD
Tastee Diner- Laurel, MD
a rare Comac brand diner
Bud’s Broiler – New Orleans, LA
Bud’s Broiler
Allen Theater
Current Photos
Flower Theater
Current Photos
Summit Diner– Somerset, PA
Summit Diner
Moody’s Diner- Waldoboro, ME
Moody’s Diner
Diner- MA
Letterman’s Diner- Kutztown, PA
We stopped here this morning for a second breakfast, a “short” stack of pancakes and a side of bacon for me, an order of eggs, bacon, homefries for my dad. My short stack turned out to be two excellent pancakes the size of platters, which even I couldn’t finish. The bacon was tasty, the coffee fresh, and the grillmanship exciting.
Outside view of the diner. Though an angled front facade has been added, the complete barrel roof is still visible. You can see where the original front sliding door once was.
Inside view of the diner. Lots of later changes, but the tile work on the counter, the ceiling and the vent hood are original.
It looks from this period photo, taken after the move, that a white painted flat ceiling was added, preserving the original wood barrel roofed ceiling underneath.
Original window at the front of the diner. The other window has been removed to make way for a larger front door.
The ceiling of the diner has this design painted where the seam trim of the ceiling (now missing) meet.
Dan’s Diner of Spencertown, NY- same design.
Vent hood
The owners of the diner say that this is the nation’s oldest Silk City, built in the very early 1930s. Can anyone confirm Silk City as the builder?
Manufacturer of the diner has been confirmed as a O’Mahony.
Compare to this interior photo of Dan’s Diner of Spencertown, NY. Same vent hood, same sliding door (though the Kutztown one’s is gone, it’s visible in the old photos, and the doublewide delete on the wall), and the same ornamentation on the ceiling
The Trail Diner- New Milford PA
I took these photos Trail Diner, Rt 11, New Milford, PA. back in 2004. It’s a c.1948 Mountain View. At that point it was pretty beat up with wood repairs done to the stainless and what appeared to be garbage bags covering the windows. I believe it was out of business at that point, though there were cars in the parking lot. As of 2013, it was looking about 9 years the worse for wear.
Coventry Diner
Here’s a photo taken several years ago of Pennsylvania’s Coventry Diner, a later Silk City which has undergone remodeling.
The four windows on the right are part of an addition. From that part left is the original diner.
Red Rose Diner
Red Rose Diner in Towanda Borough under new ownership
BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN
STAFF WRITER
Published: Thursday, April 2, 2009 3:16 AM EDT
TOWANDA — The Red Rose Diner, now a Towanda landmark, is under new ownership.
Michael Holt and Bill O’Shea, both from Buck County, bought the 82-year-old diner on Feb. 18, and they held a grand re-opening of the eatery on Wednesday, Holt said.
Holt said he has expanded the hours of the diner so that it stays open until the early evening on Wednesdays through Saturdays, and plans to add items to the menu.
“We’ll put a flower garden and flower boxes around the building,” he said.
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Holt is a self-described “diner fanatic” who says he spent years looking for an historic diner to buy and operate, before he decided to buy the Red Rose Diner. He said that he visited approximately 50 diners in his quest to find the right one.
He had read about the Red Rose Diner in books on diners, but did not know it was for sale when he visited it for the first time last summer.
He said he was extremely impressed with what he saw.
“I would have offered to buy it,” Holt said. “I liked it that much. (But) it turned out it was for sale (anyway).”
Holt said he and O’Shea will keep the name “Red Rose Diner,” and have no plans to move the diner from Towanda.
“I love that it’s on Route 6,” he said. “We were fortunate enough to find that it’s in a really special town. We’ll never move it.”
Betty Roof will continue to work at the diner, and she will be doing most of the cooking, Holt said.
“Most of the original features of the diner are still here,” including the stools, marble tabletops and counter tops, mosaic tile floor, stained glass windows, the tile and oak on the interior walls, grill, refrigerator and telephone, Holt said. “It’s an absolute gem in that respect.”
The previous owner, Gordon Tindall, had bought the diner in 1998 and restored it in Lancaster County. Tindall then moved the diner to Towanda, where it opened for business several years ago.
Holt said that last summer, he had talked to George Metropoulos Jr., the 92-year-old son of the original owner of the diner, who had seen the diner after it was restored.
Metropoulos, who used to work at the diner himself, said “the diner looked exactly the way he remembered it,” according to Holt.
Holt said he is applying to have the Red Rose Diner listed on the National Register of Historic Places, partly because of its role in expanding diners to accommodate women.
According to a written statement on the diner’s menu, “it was the first model designed to entice women (to come to the diner). The little tables were added for the ladies and stained glass windows afforded female customers privacy from oglers out on the sidewalk.”
Holt said he has an interest in things that are historic. He said he served on the board of directors of Peddler’s Village in Bucks County, which is “like a little Colonial Williamsburg,” including restored buildings and buildings that were constructed to look historic.
“I’ve always been in the hospitality and restaurant business,” said Holt, who now lives in Towanda.
The Red Rose Diner is located at 526 Main St. in Towanda.
James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
Diner Hunter 