Thursday, July 28, 2011
AP
Photo
In this April 8, 2009 photo, Lester's Diner is shown at its location on Main Street in Bryan, Ohio. The sale of a Lester's Diner includes its iconic sign, which would look familiar to fans of the old TV sitcom "Alice." Lester's aging owners closed the place in May and put it up for sale. The buyers posted a sign outside this week saying the diner would become part of a regional group of Four Seasons restaurants serving American-Greek food. (AP Photo/The Blade/Dave Zapotosky)
Associated Press
BRYAN, Ohio
The buyers of a nearly 50-year-old diner in this northwest Ohio town may also be getting a piece of television history: The joint’s iconic sign believed to have inspired the one for Mel’s Diner on the 1970s and ’80s sitcom “Alice.”
As with the fictional Mel’s, the sign outside Lester’s Diner features a tilted neon coffee cup that says “14 OUNCE CUP” and appears to be pouring out a stream of coffee that takes the shape of an arrow.
Original co-owner Lester Bammesberger also opened Lester’s diners in Florida and Arizona, and the coffee-cup sign was believed copied for “Alice.” The show was set in Phoenix and starred Linda Lavin.
The Blade of Toledo reported that the current owners of the Bryan diner — Norman Clock, 93, and son-in-law Emil Mseis, 73 — closed the place May 30 and put it up for sale. Clock and the late Bammesberger had opened the restaurant in 1965. The owners and others working at the restaurant Wednesday did not know why the show’s creators copied the sign.
Mseis, who started there as manager in 1971, said his doctor helped him decide that it was time to quit and end his seven-day work weeks.
“The doctor told me, ‘What do you want to do? Be carried away or enjoy what’s left?’” he told The Blade. “It was stressful for me, but I enjoyed it very much.”
Mseis said Tuesday that a tentative sale agreement had been reached with the owners of a regional chain of family restaurants called Four Seasons. He declined to discuss terms of the deal. A sign posted outside Lester’s this week said a new Four Seasons was coming soon.
The new owners planned to change the name on the lighted display sign but would otherwise leave it alone, with the neon coffee cup in place, Kim Schaffner, manager of the Holiday City, Ohio, Four Seasons told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Bryan, about 50 miles west of Toledo, has other connections to popular culture, besides the diner sign. It’s the home of Etch A Sketch maker Ohio Art Co. and of Spangler Candy Co., whose products include Dum Dums lollipops.