Green River, WY
The sign on the door reads, "Help wanted: Join Team Moondance and Experience the Magic."

While the new owners of the historic Moondance Diner are cooking up some magic these days, it most likely won't be served up until later this fall.

The reconstruction and renovation is continuing on the Moondance Diner -- albeit not as fast as new owners Vince and Cheryl Pierce would like.

The couple bought the former New York dining icon last year and trucked it tiny LaBarge in southwest Wyoming in the summer of 2007. Renovations on the dining icon have been ongoing for nearly a year now.

"We're still cruising right now, and we are getting closer (to opening)," Pierce said in a phone interview last week.

"It has been a bit of a struggle for us, and everybody is wondering what's taking so long ... so many people from all over Wyoming and New York and Idaho and Utah have been calling and asking when are we going to open," she said.

"We're taking our time because we want to do it right and we want to do it correctly, and we wouldn't have it any other way," Pierce said. "But we are getting excited, and we can't wait to actually get in there and get started."

The Pierces saved the diner from its planned demolition when they purchased the Moondance for $7,500 and trucked it back to Wyoming.

By Kathy Cleveland | Nashua Telegraph | Sept. 27, 2008

Manchester, NH
Manchester's landmark Red Arrow Diner will open a nearly identical 24-hour eatery on the Oval in the old Milford Diner.

The location will be the Red Arrow's second diner and it will bigger than the Manchester one, said Dawn Foote, daughter of Red Arrow owner Carol L. Sheehan.

The low-slung Manchester eatery, a well-known campaign stop during presidential primaries, is squeezed into a narrow strip of land on Lowell Street and is often bursting with customers.

Milford residents seemed happy with the news that the old Milford Diner location will open again. It has been closed since July when co-owner Gordon Maynard was killed in a car accident.

Karen Walker, owner of Karen's Kollectibles, across the street from the Milford Diner, said she is excited.

"People come in here and ask where can I get a soda or a cold drink," she said, because there is nowhere to go after 2 p.m. "Between (the new diner) and the good Chinese restaurant" nearby, it's good news for Milford, Walker said, referring to the China Golden, across from her shop.

Jerry Grubb cares so deeply about the future of his former diner that he is offering to give away the '50s-style restaurant for free.

Grubb only has one stipulation: The new owner must transport the landmark to a new location and reopen it for business.

''These types of diners are really making a comeback, and I'm surprised no one locally wants it,'' Grubb said. ''It's an excellent piece, and you can't get them much cheaper.''

The locals called it the end of an era when Grubb's Diner, a 24-hour Huntingdon institution, shut its doors for good last year to make way for a new Rite-Aid pharmacy at South Fourth Street and Route 22.

Grubb, the diner's manager and cook for 52 years, decided it was time to hang up his spatula, but he didn't have the heart to demolish the timepiece.

Instead, he dismantled it and paid a moving company to haul the silver 68-foot-long diner a mile up the road to the Huntingdon Motor Inn.

It now sits on two flat-bed trailers perched over Route 22, frozen in time and empty, except for the original retro light fixtures, booths and bar. A menu on the wall offers dinners for $1.15 and lobster tail for $2.50.

By Max. R. Mitchell | Watertown Daily Times | Sept. 2, 2008

Ogdensburg, NY
Inside the small red-and-white Phillips Diner, the crowd was large. There were just enough dark leather booths to seat everyone. Owner Judi A. Ashley barely had time to talk.

"You're going to have to cash yourself out today," she joked with one customer.

This summer the diner is celebrating its 60th year under Phillips family ownership, and it is as busy as it has always been.

"They live here," said Mrs. Ashley of the customers and suggested that she should put in beds.

The diner is an institution in Ogdensburg, popular with customers carrying canes to coloring books. The majority of the customers are regulars, with some eating three meals a day there.

Pamela J. and William D. Mitchell said they have been coming to the diner "forever," attracted by the food and the prices.

"We like to come to family-owned places, too," Mrs. Mitchell said.

If your summer included a screaming good ride on a roller coaster, you can thank a fellow by the name of Fred Ingersoll.

In the "Pittsburg" of 1905, as fiery steel furnaces belched black soot into the air, this gifted entrepreneur opened a palace of amusements in Oakland called Luna Park.

This stately pleasure ground offered picnic pavilions, dance halls, a lagoon, a coaster-like boat ride called Shoot-the-Chutes, and performers such as Mademoiselle Novi and her triple-somersaulting automobile.

Modeled after Luna Park on New York's Coney Island, it boasted a hodgepodge of architectures ranging from Japanese to Moorish and was built at a cost of $375,000; re-creating it today would cost about $8.5 million.

Mr. Ingersoll, the mustachioed genius behind this wonderland, went on to create the nation's first chain of 44 amusement parks and design or build 277 roller coasters.

You probably have not heard of Mr. Ingersoll, even though he designed and built Kennywood Park's first Racer roller coaster, a Three-Way Figure-Eight Toboggan.

He ranked among the five most influential men when amusement parks exploded between 1899 and 1905, a time when 75 new parks were built each year.

"He was very visionary in that he saw this as an industry, not just a collection of businesses," said Jim Futrell, author of "Amusement Parks of Pennsylvania."

By Mary Harrington | The Daily Iowan | August 26, 2008

Gert MacQueen sips coffee at a booth in the Hamburg Inn No. 2 with her daughter, Jennifer Hamilton.

She points above her head to framed photos of former President Clinton on the wall as she describes the restaurant as an institution of the Democratic Party. She has been talking politics here for 60 years now.

"Today is such a treat," MacQueen said with an infectious grin on her face. "It's a day to celebrate."

The Hamburg Inn No. 2 celebrated its 60th anniversary on Monday, serving roughly 300 free burgers for lunch to more than 200 people, spilling out in front of the restaurant.

Gary Sanders, a 30-year employee at Hamburg, said the restaurant succeeds because of its food, service, and ambiance.

"This is the kind of place I seek out everywhere I travel," he said. "And this place is the best of its kind."

Phoenixville, PA
The South Main Street Cafe, 119 South Main Street, has made its debut over the weekend, cumulating a hectic six months for owner Helen Jackson.

It was on Sunday, February 24, when the Vale-Rio Diner closed its doors for good, leaving long-time employee Jackson wondering what she was going to do with her life.

"I never thought (the Vale closing) would ever happen," said Jackson. "We thought the Vale would reopen and we'd be back to work. I never imagined this would be so real."

The closing of the Vale-Rio Diner, said Jackson, was very hard on her.

"It was like a drawn-out funeral service," she said. "I bought a cross and flowers and put it out in front of the diner. I miss the Vale. I miss the people. You never know what you have until it's gone. We are just getting over it."

By Rebecca Trylch | WJRT-TV | August 14, 2008

Hollywood is headed to Mid-Michigan. Starting soon, film crews with a Drew Barrymore-directed film will start making movie magic in Birch Run Township.

The movie is called "Whip It," and one of the stars is Ellen Page. You might remember her from the movie "Juno."

The Internet Movie Database says "Whip It" is a movie about an indie-rock-loving misfit who finds a way of dealing with her small-town misery after she discovers a roller derby league.

The film is set in Texas, but a former Birch Run Township diner is where some of the filming will be done.

Ken's Diner closed about a year ago, but now it's being transformed into the "Oink Joint." That's the Texas barbeque joint where the two main characters work.

The star of the show for now is a giant pig. Soon it will sit atop the diner. But as you can imagine, transforming the '50s-style diner into a country diner has been a lot of work.