I recently got a couple of additions to my collection. One item was a matchbook cover for a diner I used to frequent in the 1980’s and 90’s. The matchbook dates back to when it was operated under its original name. The other item was a photo of the very first Sterling Streamliner built by J.B. Judkins Company of Merrimac, Mass.
Fasano’s Diner matchbook cover
As the matchbook cover says, this diner was located in South Braintree, Mass. It was a 1964 vintage Fodero “colonial style” diner with large windows, a small stainless steel overhanging roof trim or parapet and perma-stone faced exterior. The interior featured a terrazzo floor, imatation wooden ceiling beams and a lot of wood grain formica.
By the time I started frequenting it in the early 1980’s it had become the Olympian Diner. This diner closed in the late 1990’s and was bought back by the original owners and moved into storage. Although they were thinking of finding a new operating loctaion for it, their plans did not come to fruition and sometime in the last few years it was resold and moved to another storage site near the New Hampshire border.
Olympian Diner, circa 1990’s prior to move.
Olympian Diner in storage, peeking out from behind the former Monarch Diner that operated in Dover, NH and Berwick, Maine.
Old photo of Yankee Flyer Diner
I also just got an interesting 1940’s vintage black & white photo of the Yankee Flyer Diner formerly of Nashua, NH. This photo was shot by someone named Yann DePierrefeu. According to what I have learned, Mr. DePierrefeu was fairly well educated and married into wealth. From what I was told, he basically was a man of leisure and galavanted around shooting photographs of anything that interested him. I’m told he was especially fond of railroad depots and documented quite a few of them with his photographs.
The photo of the Yankee Flyer Diner looks to be from the early 1940’s as the diner had a site-built entryway which did not come with the building when it left the J.B. Judkins Company in 1939. This diner was the first streamliner model out of the Judkins factory and it was bought to replace a 1930 vintage Worcester Lunch Car that was previously on the site.
Here is a matchbook cover I got within the last few years showing this double-ended streamliner.
In Nashua the memory of this diner is still very strong even though it has been gone since the 1960’s I believe. Back about 15 years ago, a mural was painted on a blank wall that faced a municipal parking lot in downtown Nashua depicting the local landmark, ironically not far from where it operated.
Yankee Flyer mural in downtown Nashua, NH
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