Diner scrambles to hash out a deal

It served its last Adam and Eve on a Raft -- two poached eggs on toast -- years ago, and today the Big Dig Diner sits forlornly on the South Boston waterfront, awaiting either the wrecking ball or last-minute rescue.

At an auction earlier this month, there were no bidders for the classic restaurant, which was moved here in 1995 to become part of a culinary arts program for troubled youths.

The auctioneer, however, did sell the diner's contents, which included booths, stools, and kitchen equipment.

The little diner, built in 1946 and originally located in Pennsylvania, functioned fine as a training ground for aspiring Boston chefs, but it was a commercial flop.

Open only for lunch during the week, it failed to generate enough revenue to stay in business. Its owner, Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses, closed it in 2003.

Now, the city of Boston, which owns the land the diner occupies in South Boston's Marine Industrial Park, wants the structure gone.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority has given the Dorchester nonprofit until the end of this month to move it. After that, it will be considered abandoned.

``Our time is dwindling," said Mark Hinderlie, president of Federated.

Lucy Warsh, spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said the agency does not have a firm deadline for when the diner has to be moved.

``The primary concern is working with the organization to come up with a solution," she said.

A rescue effort involving a loose alliance of aficionados of classic diners appeared to be forming last week.

Randy Garbin, publisher of Roadside magazine and the website Roadsideonline.com, was trying to connect Hinderlie with potential buyers, or at least someone willing to take the diner off his hands.

``It's still a very handsome and viable structure," said Garbin, whose Ambler, Pa. -based publication celebrates classic diners and other institutions of the American roadside. ``It's a vanishing breed."

Garbin said he knows of at least one person interested in acquiring the restaurant. The absence of booths, stools, and other equipment is not a major problem because the fixtures were not original , according to Garbin.

He said he and other diner lovers did not know about the auction in advance, and it takes time to prepare a bid and find a place to put a diner.

Don Levy, owner of the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, was interested in the Big Dig Diner and attended the auction. He said he did not bid on it because he did not have a site where he could put it.

The minimum bid was first set at $15,000, then dropped to $5,000, but there were no bidders either time, according to Levy.

``It's well worth that if you have a place to put it," he said.

Although diners are now recognized as American icons, they are still something of an endangered species.

Many diners have been abandoned or demolished, victims of competition from national chains, escalating real estate values, and the ravages of time.

There are probably about 2,000 left in the United States, down from a mid-20th-century peak of 6,000.

The Big Dig Diner was manufactured in Paterson, N.J., and operated in two locations in Pennsylvania before it was moved in the early 1990s to Cleveland to be restored.

Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses modeled its culinary training program for high school dropouts and youngsters who had had trouble with the law after a similar program in Baltimore, which used the diner that was featured in the 1982 movie ``Diner."

Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.