The Blue Benn...Forever Frozen in Time
The Blue Benn, Bennington Vermont, Winter 2009.
A review:
The Blue Benn, an original Silk City dining car, was planted on this site along Route 7 in 1949. To this day, it remains a true-blue hash house with a menu that includes such square meals as pot roast, turkey dinner, and meat loaf and mashed potatoes. In addition to the expected, there are international dishes including Syrian-bread roll-ups and vegetarian enchiladas, and such modern fare as a grilled salmon Caesar salad. In fact, the interior is plastered everywhere with literally hundreds of kitchen specials, plain to fancy. Breakfast delights include corn bread French toast and stacks of Crunchberry pancakes with turkey hash on the side, as well as eminently dunkable locally-made donuts.
source: nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010682.html
Another review (with great detail) can be found here:
www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/diners6.html
The Blue Benn inspired a song:
"Gray Diner at 5 a.m." (Bill Lauf)
More:
source: www.iberkshires.com/story/22579/Sunday-Morning-Taste-Test...
The food isn't the singular reason to visit the diner. The Blue Benn is an authentic creation of the Paterson Vehicle Co., [also known as the Silk City design firm] which manufactured the the diner's body in Paterson, N.J. during the the 1940s.
According to a history included in the diner's menu jacket, "in 1948, [the diner] was shipped and assembled on its present site here in Bennington." Sonny Monroe purchased the diner in 1973 and he, his wife Mary Lou, and the couple's daughter Lisa have been dishing up diner cuisine since.
source: www.iberkshires.com/story/22579/Sunday-Morning-Taste-Test...
And, amazingly, it's a Silk City (Paterson, N.J.) diner:
Silk City Diners (Paterson Vehicle Company), Paterson, NJ, 1927-1964, built a fine-crafted diner in a variety of styles . Exteriors typically used a combination of stainless steel and porcelin in many different color schemes and often displayed the diner's name on a large horizontal porcelin stripe. Two Silk City diners are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Clarksville Diner in Decorah, Iowa, and the Village Diner in Red Hook, New York. All Silk City's that I have seen which were built before the mid-50's, have a similar monitor style roof. Later Silk City's feature a flat roofline and an unusually large vestibule, as does the Martindale Chief Diner located just off the Taconic Parkway in upstate New York.
source: www.dinercity.com/dinerFacts.html
I live in Paterson New Jersey and found this diner entirely by chance, passing through Bennington Vermont.
Karma?