The Road Island Diner

I love diner food. Give me mac and cheese or meatloaf with mashed potatoes and I'm a happy camper. The Road Island Diner in Utah looks like my kind of place and it comes with an interesting history.

In 1939 the nation’s leading diner manufacturer, the Jerry O’Mahony Co. of Elizabeth, New Jersey, rolled out factory diner number #1107, its deluxe model complete with chrome glass showcased green Italian Marble countertops, Tiffany glass clerestory windows in a monitor style roof and hand laid quarry tiled flooring. The diner was showcased at the 1939 New York World’s fair.

After the Fair it was towed to Fall River, Mass. where it operated with great success for 14 years.
It was then sold  to Tommy Borodemus, who was looking to expand out of his 15 stool 1936 Worchester lunch wagon which he had purchased with the $600.00 New Deal bonus offered to WWI veterans by FDR to counteract the effects of the great depression. Borodemus had the diner moved to the nearby seaside town of Middletown, R.I and renamed it “Tommy’s Deluxe Diner”.

In 2006 the family sold the property to the Tim Horton doughnut chain and a search began for a deserving home for this rare piece of Americana. In May of 2007, the diner was transported across the country weaving its way through designated back roads complete with state police escorts and pilot cars. It arrived in Oakley, Utah in mid-July and began its complete restoration.

Via