On a diner trip back in November 2007, the La Carreta Restaurant was the thirteenth diner we visited. Upon arrival we noticed the diner was closed and the subject of vandalism. Closing during 2004, the prospects of it reopening now didn't look good.Throughout the years, this 1968 Swingle Diner Company diner maintained its Colonial style exterior of stone, brick and carriage lamps. Inside the diner, things looked close to the original too. At intervals on the ceiling, there were dark wood-like beams running the width of the diner. Suspended by chains from the ceiling were large wagon wheels with four lamps. The back bar area was covered in a mosaic of small tiles. On the wood paneled wall of the perimeter booths is a Seeburg Consolette jukebox. Some of these were still labeled with a name the diner operated as in the past; Bridgeport Flyer. At the counter, we noticed the stool post mounted into the foot rest rather than the floor. Also, the foot rest matched the terrazzo style floor.
Thirteen turned out to be an unlucky number for this diner. Today's Connecticut Post article by John Burgeson reports the diner was demolished yesterday. The site is slated for unrelated businesses.
This Swingle diner replaced what looks to be a 1940's double-ended Sterling Streamliner diner. See our post about Sterling Streamliner diners here. We found two other names for businesses operating at this address: Five Star Diner and El Taino. While there are Colonial style Kullman and DeRaffele diners in Connecticut, we'd like to know if there are other Swingles remaining.
For more pictures of diners, we invite you to visit our flickr photostream here.
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I believe the Penny II Diner (I cannot remember what town) is a Swingle from around 1984 or 85. I saw part of it in the factory the same day that another section had been delivered to it's site.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting us know. Checked the database and have Penny's II located at 2200 Black Rock Tpke., Fairfield, CT. It was once known as Pike Diner.
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