Reading WWII weekend

The main stop of yesterday was at the Reading Airport/ Mid Atlantic Air Museum for the WWII weekend, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of D-Day. I met up with members of the Fedora Lounge, chatted; had lunch. There was an incredible turnout of reenactors, from all sides of the war. Saw beautiful WWII fighters, bombers and trainers in flight, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

In the sitting Room
Photobucket

Getting a drink at a french bar
Photobucket

My new car (I wish)
Photobucket

Fedora Loungers posing for a photo
Photobucket

German and a German Shephard
Photobucket

And the best moustache award goes to…
Photobucket

VW
Photobucket

Stuka
Photobucket

B-17 Landing
Photobucket

Planes over Russia
Photobucket

B-17 takeoff
Photobucket

Explosion. Spitfire in the foreground.
Photobucket

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.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

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:
Photobucket

Photobucket

Now:
Photobucket

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.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Now:

Photobucket

Photobucket

Frost Diner- Warrenton, VA
The Frost is a 1955 O’Mahony.

Photobucket

Inside
Photobucket

Counter
Photobucket

A sign of the times- Disco Fashion T-shirts
Photobucket

Pork Chop- $1.25, Fried Chicken $1.75
Photobucket

Photobucket

Tastee Diner- Silver Spring, MD

Photobucket

Photobucket

Tastee Diner- Laurel, MD
a rare Comac brand diner

Photobucket

Bud’s Broiler – New Orleans, LA
Bud’s Broiler
Photobucket

Allen Theater
Current Photos
Photobucket

Flower Theater
Current Photos
Photobucket

Summit Diner– Somerset, PA
Summit Diner
Photobucket

Moody’s Diner- Waldoboro, ME
Moody’s Diner
Photobucket

Diner- MA
Photobucket

Tierney Diner Ad – 1926

Photobucket

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 ($36,000 in 2009 $) – 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

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Dinosaurland 1972-1973

I was sent these pictures of White Post Virginia’s Dinosaurland by reader Tommy Wilson. They were taken in 1972 or 1973.

“I grew up in northern virginia and my dad took me there when I was a kid (about 6 or 7 I recon) I had NO IDEA the place was still there!”

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

The Korner Diner- Newark, Delaware

The Korner Diner was closed, and supposed to be “updated” this past october, according to an article in the University of Delaware review.

Korner Diner closes
Tells more of the story of the battle over the diner.

Pictures of the diner from several years back, when I visited.
Photobucket
L-shaped O’Mahony with blue flex-glas. Double doors on the corner

Photobucket
Manufactured by Jerry O’Mahony Inc. Elizabeth, NJ In our line we lead the world

Photobucket
Corner of the diner

Photobucket

Photobucket
curved booths. They’ve carpeted over the floor. Doesn’t seem like there’d be much reason to do that.

Photobucket
interior with back wall of windows. Pink formica, gray booths and stools.

Photobucket
The L-shaped diner is very original, other than the carpeting, and in excellent repair.

Photo of the Korner Diner’s old neon, reading “Newark Diner”. I have another picture, of the diner as Jimmy’s but I can’t seem to find it at the moment. It was also known as Jude’s.
Photobucket

Aberdeen Eagle Diner- Aberdeen, Maryland

Photobucket
Exterior of the Aberdeen eagle. The corner stainless and the curved window are still visible, but that’s about it. Brick and a red mansard roof disguise the true nature of the diner.

Photobucket
Aberdeen Eagle- All baking done on premises. The sign states that they’re open 24 hours, something becoming rarer all the time.

Photobucket
The rooftop neon. Presumably original to the diner, and not added at the time of the remodel.

Photobucket
The interior. Very boxy- lots of hard corners, almost no curves, other than that of the counter and the scalloped edges by the menu-board. It’s leaning towards the more space-age and environmental designs yet to come, while still staying within the confines of a classic 1950s stainless model.

Photobucket
Spindly stools with octagonal bases. Also interesting to note the use of an entirely tile floor. With the design of this diner, I would have expected terrazzo, and not older style mosaic tile.

Photobucket
Blue is the overwhelming color.

You don’t see too many of this model diner; not many with interiors with this kind of styling. What I have been able to find says it’s a mid ’50s Kullman. I’ve seen Kullman dinettes with similar boxy interiors, but this is the only full-sized diner I’ve been to quite like this. It has been covered over, years ago, with tan brick, with a dining room on the right, making it less recognizable from the road, especially when compared with the New Ideal Diner, just half a mile down the road and across the street. Inside it is essentially in-tact.

Hollywood Diner- Dover, DE

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

This diner was made by the Fodero Diner company of Bloomfield, NJ, which was around from 1933 to 1981. This one was built c. 1954.

Fodero Diner factory site now

For pictures of the Hollywood Diner from 2008, visit here.