Dave Pritchard of Salisbury had started buying old diners a number of years ago and storing them at his truck/trailer company yard in Salisbury.
The diners included the Miss Newport Diner of Newport, VT (now the Miss Mendon of Mendon, Mass.)
the Olympian Diner formerly of Braintree, Mass. as well as the Monarch.
the Englewood Diner last operated in Dorchester, Mass. was purchased by the owner of New Balance Footwear had purchased it and moved it to an undisclosed location, where the restored diner is being used for corporate functions only and not open to the public
It was sold the diner to Dan Johnston in the year 2000. Johnston purchased it for $20,000, moved the diner to the town of Holden. Johnston talked about reopening it and another was possibly attaching it to his house for private use. None of that ever happened and in fact, according to Randy Garbin of Roadside Online, Johnston even had the diner listed on Ebay for a short time.
While in Johnston’s possession, the diner ended up taking its longest round trip to be in a big budget Hollywood movie! Johnston was approached by Dreamworks Production Company in 2001. Dreamworks wanted to use the diner in a scene of the movie “Road to Perdition” starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. According to Garbin as quoted from his book Diners of New England, Dreamworks reportedly paid Johnston nearly $40,000 giving Johnston the first option to purchase it back after the scenes in the movie were completed.
The diner was transported to the Chicago area for the film and Johnston bought it back for less than half his original sale price. As Garbin noted the time-frame of the film was set in 1931 while purists would note that the diner is from 1941…
Johnston sold the diner to Dave Pritchard in 2003. That is when the Englewood came to Salisbury where it stayed until 2012 and ultimately purchased by New Balance Footwear.
https://dinerhotline.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/englewood-diner-becomes-red-line-diner/
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