Lorain Diner Part 1

Sometimes, an item that I was going to post as filler ends up leading me on the proverbial wild goose chase.

On the same page of the March 16, 1953 Lorain Journal that included the Hollywood Lounge ad (which I posted yesterday), there was an ad for Lorain Diner (above).

Lorain Diner? I'd never heard of it.

But the ad said it was at "Stop 109 West Lake Road – near the underpass." According to this list of Lake Shore Electric Railway stops (on the Lake Shore Rail Maps website), Stop 109 was the Lorain Country Club, which was located just east of the railroad undercut on the north side of U.S. Route 6.

Intrigued that a classic diner might have been located out there at one time, I did a little digging in the city directories. Unfortunately, that area was part of Black River Township until it was later annexed to Lorain in the 1960s – so the diner wasn't listed in the 1950s books. The diner wasn't to be found in any of the mid-1960s books either.

However, it was in the 1954 Lorain County Farm & Rural Directory. The listing for U.S. 6 started at the Vermilion border and worked its way eastward, numbering the properties as they appeared and designating whether they were on the north or south side of the highway. (Most of the properties didn't have numerical addresses yet.)

Here's the listing for Lorain Diner (below).

So now I knew it was on the south side of the street, just east of the Pueblo Tavern (which I've been promising to blog about for almost 5 years) and a few residences. The diner was also roughly opposite the Vanishing Beach Motel.

The name associated with Lorain Diner – Richard Head – made sense, since he owned and operated the various outlets of The Hoop restaurants.

But what became of Lorain Diner? It sure wasn't there now. Was it trucked away at some point?

It was time to head back to the library.