The American Diner is a Philipsburg landmark, and its renown is widespread throughout the Moshannon Valley and beyond. On any given day, you’ll find folks who have driven upwards of 30 minutes from every direction to enjoy a down-home, unpretentious meal at the old-time, roadside eatery, which sits on Route 322 just west of Philipsburg.
“We had a couple people come down on Friday from Brockway for fish,” says Dave McClure Jr., who operates the diner with his wife, Sarah, and father, Dave Sr. “If people are in State College for a doctor’s appointment, they’ll wait ’til they’re back here to get something to eat. People drive over from Clearfield.”
Your typical items—eggs, pancakes, toast, scrapple, omelets—fill breakfast orders (along with coffee, lots of coffee!). Hamburger steak, club sandwiches, meatloaf, and roast beef satisfy the lunch and dinner crowds (although breakfast is available all day). The fare isn’t fancy, but it’s of a fine quality, quick, affordable, and served in a friendly atmosphere that’s as comfortable as your grandmother’s living room.
Sometimes it can feel like a living room, too. The booths in the cozy dining area are connected to one another, so as people pack the place, their conversations sometimes spill into those of the people behind, in front of, or beside them. It’s a great place to make new friends.
“I like it because all the locals come here,” says frequent patron Karen Stine of Philipsburg. “I see people I know here all the time, and I love that.”
‘Truck drivers paid the bills‘
Dave McClure Sr.’s parents bought the diner back in 1950. The family had been living in McKeesport and asked around: “Where’s there a business up in the mountains to buy?”
Dave Sr. recalls that coming to Philipsburg “was like moving back into history 100 years.” The old school he attended in Pleasant Hill had five grades in one room.
“I expected to see Abe Lincoln walk in anytime!” he says.
The McClures moved into a house behind the diner.
“It was four rooms sittin’ on four cement blocks, had a pot-belly stove in there,” Dave Sr. says. “No water, no kitchen in the house, just four vacant rooms.”
The McClures ran the restaurant—with a gas station next door—as a family business for several years. Dave Sr. remembers the diner being a rowdy place at times, as blue-collar working families usually didn’t have the money to splurge on eating out, but “the truckdrivers did, and drunks can always find money.
“If it hadn’t been for truck drivers and drunks, Dad would’a starved to death,” says Dave Sr. “’Cause that’s what the nightshift was —the drunks and the truck drivers were what paid the bills. We were open 24 hours a day then. We didn’t have a key to the front door.”
Both of Dave Sr.’s parents died when he was young.
“I had to grow up real fast,” he says.
‘It was nothing but a shack’
Dave Sr. got out of the diner business, worked various jobs, married Dee, and had two children: Elaine and Dave Jr. He had a good job as a truckdriver in the early 1980s when he and his family decided to open the American Diner back up again.
“It was a garage,” Dave Sr. recalls. “It was nothing but a shack. Dave [Jr.] was about 15 years old at the time [in 1984]. My wife Dee, daughter Elaine, we all donated about a year’s time—plus a few volunteers—working on the place.
“I couldn’t afford to quit my job. My wife ran [the diner] by herself for about six months. I called here one night, the place was packed. It sounded like a barroom on the other end there—total chaos.”
Dave Sr. remembers considering the prospect of diving in full-time to the diner, giving up his benefits from his company employer, “not knowing if you’re going to make it or not.” He says giving his notice that day was “one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.”
But it paid off. The American Diner is going on 40 years since the reopening and sustains itself through a family that’s realized the American dream by working hard, day in and day out.
“I shot the dice,” Dave Sr. says. “The family supported me the whole way through.”
“It can be trying sometimes,” Dave Jr. says. “The wife [Sarah] comes down, she helps cook. She does all the desserts. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. I couldn’t do it by myself. It’s too much. It takes both of us here to keep it running.”
The desserts—old-favorite pies (coconut cream, lemon meringue, etc.)—and imaginative cakes (s’mores flavor!) are celebrated. One woman came in a few months ago and bought a dozen pies, which she gives to her grandchildren at holidays.
Though the American Diner’s mainstay is classic American diner food, Dave Jr. has worked to expand the offerings as people’s tastes and expectations have evolved over the years.
“When we opened back up, people started coming in here and wanting omelets,” Dave Sr. remembers. “Well, how the hell do you cook an omelet? So finally I got onto it there, and that’s one of our biggest deals in the morning now is omelets. But I had no idea how to cook one, ’cuz we didn’t have them in the ’50s. They added some new stuff to the menu—I don’t even recognize some of it there.”
“Quesadilla, fish tacos,” Dave Jr. rattles off the more modern menu items.
“I never heard of it before. I’m still a hamburg and a roast beef and a fried egg kinda guy,” says Dave Sr.
“The wife made tuna noodle casserole the other day,” continues Dave Jr.
“That sell good?”
“Sold out!”
“Shows what I know,” smirks Dave Sr.
The American Diner beef tips and noodles are legendary, both Daves agree.
Are the noodles homemade?
“Unfortunately,” says Dave Jr.
“He b****** the whole time,” Dave Sr. says with a laugh. “I could eat ’em, and I’m not even hungry. They are delicious.”
‘You make no provision for failure’
Though the McClure clan has defied the odds and stayed in business throughout the pandemic turmoil that has caused so many other mom ’n’ pop shops to shutter their doors, the restaurant hasn’t always had smooth sailing.
Fifteen or so years ago, for instance, “everything was due” at the spring of the year—insurance payments, taxes, and so forth. “And I was broke,” Dave Sr. remembers.
He went to the bank to borrow $30,000 to bail himself out. He hates banks and “despises” paying interest, so when the loan officer asked him how long he wanted to pay the money back—“15 years?”—Dave Sr. remembered an old coal miner telling him, “You make no provision for failure,” and told the bank man, “No, five years.”
More than 36,000 eggs (a year) and countless cups of coffee later and, “We paid it off in three years,” Dave Sr. said.
Dave Sr. says there’s a feeling of achievement that comes with going into business for yourself that you don’t get from working for someone else. “You can say, ‘This is mine, I’ve done this,’” he says.
Dave Jr. says that lately, not being able to find help, the difficulty in acquiring products, and the increasing cost of things is “getting to be overwhelming.”
Dave Sr. and another celebrated diner regular, Jack Shannon, counted the number of small local businesses that have disappeared since the 1950s, and those that are left.
“I don’t think you can count more than five or six now between here and Kylertown,” Dave Sr. reflects. “And they all made a living out of these places! Between government intervention and red tape and so forth, people are afraid to get into small business. It’s an undertaking, a challenge. But people shopped local at that time. They supported their local business, which has eroded tremendously in these past few years.”
Hint, hint, readers … T&G
Teresa Mull is a freelance writer who loves living in Philipsburg.
