A Slice of Americana, Best Offer
MARIA PAPPAS, a tiny grandmother whose voice still carries echoes of her native Cyprus, stood in front of the Victory Diner the other day and let her dark eyes roam over every glass brick and blue enamel panel of the boxcar-shaped structure.
For about 30 years, this little piece of Americana in Dongan Hills, Staten Island, has been run by the Pappas family, first by Ms. Pappas’s husband, Paris, and, since his death, by Ms. Pappas. But time has worn the diner down. “It needs work, if you know what I’m saying,” Ms. Pappas said as she tapped on a protruding piece of chrome siding with a stubby red fingernail.
The Victory Diner may need work, but more urgently, it needs a savior. In coming weeks, a buyer for the dining car, a 1947 Kullman Challenger, must appear and move it elsewhere, or the structure will be demolished to make way for an office building.
The diner, originally on Victory Boulevard but since 1964 on Richmond Road near Seaver Avenue, has been shut since April, when Ms. Pappas placed a sign in the front window saying “Closed for Vacation.” The sign is still there, but since spring, weeds have pushed through the pavement out front and a cyclone fence cordoning off the lot has been installed.
“I couldn’t run it anymore,” Ms. Pappas said as she sat in one of the rose-colored vinyl booths. The customers, she said, just weren’t showing up.
As she spoke, the empty room smelled of musty air and cooking oil. Heavy white coffee cups were stacked on a Formica tabletop near the back wall. The 10 counter stools were gone, given away as souvenirs.
The Pappas family, which owns the land as well as the diner, leased the site to Leonard Tallo, a Staten Island developer who also owns 21 Dunkin’ Donuts shops in the borough. He plans to build a two-story building, with offices and stores.
After The Staten Island Advance reported the Victory’s impending demise on July 10, some readers bemoaned the diner’s fate on the newspaper’s Web site. “This is terrible,” one wrote. “Where is the Staten Island Historical Society?” (Not able to step in and save the day, according to John Guild, executive director of the society. “We’re not in a position to acquire it at this time,” he said in an interview, “but I’d like to see it saved. I’ve had lunch there.”)
As it turns out, the family and Mr. Tallo had already discussed ways to save the diner. The family has offered it for sale through dinermuseum.org, which is dedicated to celebrating and preserving vintage diners. Mr. Tallo agreed to delay his plans to see if the family could strike a deal.
“We always wanted to save it,” explained the youngest of Ms. Pappas’s three sons, Steve, 41, who worked the grill at the Victory for 25 years. “But we weren’t sure anyone would want it.”
As of late last week, there had been no bids on the Victory, according to Ms. Pappas. But someone who came up with the “$15,000 or best offer” would own what Daniel Zilka, the executive director of the American Diner Museum in Providence, R.I., calls a “living history exhibit” that harks back to the days when America’s roadsides were dotted with converted railroad cars.
The chrome-and-blue building with the red neon sign has been the site of two marriage proposals that Ms. Pappas remembers, and one wedding. Legend has it that the bank robber Willie Sutton worked there as a short-order cook before the Pappas family arrived.
After Ms. Pappas’s husband died in 1982, she developed her popular beef goulash, which was offered along with more typical diner fare like burgers and tuna melts. Over the years, the classic-looking diner also became a popular spot for filming television commercials (Welch’s Grape Jelly) and movies (“Easy Money”). But now, on the stretch of Richmond Road that Ms. Pappas says had only a gas station and a fruit stand when her family bought the Victory in the 1970s, development has arrived. The two-lane road is lined with strip malls full of law offices, nail parlors and chain stores like the Subway sandwich shop next door.
Ms. Pappas is trying to keep her hopes in check as she waits to see if a buyer appears. Tracing her finger along the last of the spiral-bound plastic menus, she decided to take it home. “A souvenir,” she explained.