A number of items from the Department of Changing Landscapes have caught my eye in recent days, but one in particular makes me a very happy boy indeed: I’ve learned that there is a genuine 1940s-vintage diner on its way to Utah even as I type this, the very one you see in the photo above.

I confess, I have a deep affection for old-tymey cafes and greasy spoons, the sorts of places where both of my grandmothers slung hash and where men in hats hunched over their eggs and coffee at long counters while they read the latest news about the War in Europe. There aren’t many such places left in Utah, and the ones that do still endure tend to be pretty far from the Wasatch Front, out in the small outpost towns of the state’s hinterlands. (I recommend Mom’s Cafe in Salina, if you ever find yourself in Salina for some reason.) As far as I know, however, Utah never had a diner like the one in the photo above, one of those streamlined prefab jobs that resemble train cars and turn up in period movies like, well, Diner.

(We do have Ruth’s Diner, which was built inside an old Salt Lake City trolley, but it’s really not the same thing. The classic diners celebrated by the American Diner Museum were built in factories, not retrofitted from actual train cars, and in any event, the various additions to Ruth’s have so effectively hidden the original trolley at the core of the building that you really have to look to see it. None of which diminishes my love for the place; it’s great food in a great location, and with a colorful history to boot.)

According to the article I linked above, the diner that’s coming to Utah was built in 1939 and has spent most of its lifetime in Rhode Island. It was sold to make room for a national-chain doughnut shop — an all-too common story, something old and cool getting displaced by the generic, ubiquitous, and tacky — and is one of only about 1,200 survivors out of the 6,000 or so similar eateries that once dotted the East Coast and Midwest. Its new home will be Oakley, Utah, a small town in the mountains east of Park City. That’s a fair jaunt from Salt Lake — probably about 90 minutes or two hours of driving — but it’ll be worth it to enjoy a nice big slab of meatloaf in a place like this. Especially since the original interior (pictured below) is mostly intact, and the new owner plans to restore what isn’t to its original specs.

The “Road Island Diner,” as Oakley’s new tourist attraction is to be known, is scheduled to be up and running by spring of next year. I’m hoping to be doing a little bit of time travelling right afterwards…