Buy this charmingly retro dining car on Facebook for $35,000
This living slice of nostalgia is looking for a new lease on life.
In Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania, a classic Fodero Dining Car that had long served as a local eatery has hit the market for just $35,000 — and its next owner can simply buy it online.
“Looking to sell as a complete unit, not interested in selling parts. In fair condition,” seller Mike Weaver wrote in his listing for the restaurant-vessel on Facebook Marketplace, adding “Transportation options available.”
Indeed, the stainless steel dining car does not include the lot it currently sits on, and anyone interested in buying it must also have a plan to move it elsewhere.
“We own the property and plan to repurpose it. The restaurant was demolished but the original diner car is being saved and we are trying sell it,” Weaver told The Post.
Before its current, empty incarnation, the car was a variety of restaurants — feeding countless souls in its corner of Pennsylvania over the course of many decades.
Among the eateries it housed was Risser’s Family Restaurant, also known as Risser’s diner, which served generous portions of Pennsylvania Dutch food out of the car for 35 years — closing only after its proprietor, Ernie Risser, passed away in 2014, Reading Eagle reported.
The following year, three business partners bought it for $275,000. they renovated and reopened it in November 2015 as the Blue Star Family Restaurant, which was later renamed Rocky Family Restaurant in 2018.
For pre-Risser history, Weaver directed The Post to a set of photos posted on Facebook by a woman whose grandparents once ran yet another restaurant out of the space.
“My grandparents, Gerald and Ruby Werner, purchased the diner car and built the additions, and operated the restaurant along with two others, the Womelsdorf and Wernersville [diners], until my Grandfather passed away in 1963 at the age of 40,” the dining car descendant captioned the black and white, Americana-rich images of the eatery.
The golden age of roadside diners may be over, but perhaps a buyer of this prolific dining car can bring on another.
