New Prospect Mt. Diner to open this week in Lake George, NY

Prospect Mt. Diner, circa 1983, Larry Cultrera

 Back in November and December I had posted news on the Prospect Mt. Diner of Lake George, NY. This was a follow-up to my last Diner Hotline column for the Society for Commercial Archeology’s Journal Magazine. Almost a year ago (May 11, 2007) the Prospect Mt. Diner, an early 1950’s vintage double-wide Silk City diner in near original condition was destroyed in a devastating fire. Below is a photo from Mike Engle showing the remains of the diner just hours before it was demolished.

 I reported in the earlier blogs that owner Art Leonhard, who had owned the diner since the late 1960’s was in the process of buying a brand new Diner-Mite diner after deciding that trying to locate, move and setup an older vintage diner was too expensive. The new diner arrived on-site in December and it took all winter for Leonhard to get the diner setup to run.

Well, Glenn Wells (of Roadsidefans Yahoo Group & website) took a little trip north from the Albany area this past weekend and checked on the progress of the new Prospect Mt. Diner in Lake George. Glenn reports they are set to reopen this coming Friday (2 days short of the years anniversary of the fire). Here is one of Glenn’s shots of the new diner. He says it probably has less seats than the old diner and he, like a lot of us would have rather seen a vintage older diner than a Diner-Mite. But as I have said in the past, a new Diner-Mite is better than no diner.