Updated 8:34 p.m. Jan. 25, 2025.
A new family-owned diner is set to serve up homestyle meals in the Bellefonte area.
The Red Roost Diner is expected to open on Tuesday, Jan. 28, after a limited soft opening starting Friday, Jan. 24, in the former Mr. Hot Dog & More location at 807 Pleasantview Boulevard, between Bellefonte and Milesburg.
Owners Holly and Jason “Sam” Smith plan to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner six days a week, Holly Smith told StateCollege.com.
The menu will feature many of the traditional favorites you’d expect from a family diner. Breakfast includes egg plates, omelettes, pancakes and biscuits and gravy, while lunch items include a variety of sandwiches, melts and cheesesteaks. Dinners will feature steaks, pork chops, chicken, liver and onions and Million Dollar Spaghetti, a spaghetti casserole similar to lasagna. The restaurant will also have homemade desserts and daily dinner specials.
Also featured will be Holly Smith’s Roost Bowls: a breakfast bowl with chicken and waffles; a lunch bowl with fresh-cut fries, chicken and gravy; and a dinner bowl with homemade noodles, chicken and gravy.
“It’s going to be home-cooked meals,” Smith said. “I’m going to be prepping them, cooking them myself. Of course, there will be some frozen stuff that I can’t, but for the most part, it’s going to be homemade desserts, homemade soups, homemade everything.”
In a nod to location’s former tenant, the Red Roost Diner will feature a couple of specialties from Mr. Hot Dog, which closed in November 2023 after nearly four decades in business. Texas hot dogs will be a regular part of the menu, and ham pot pie will be a weekly special.
“They had a famous ham pot pie and they had the famous Texas dog. I’m still going to have those,” Smith said. “It will still be the same Texas sauce that it was before. I don’t know the recipe, but the owner’s going to come in and make it for me.”
The Smiths had no business or family connection to Mr. Hot Dog, but after the Condo family decided to close the business, Holly started noticing the “for rent” sign outside the building as she drove past every morning.
Both Holly and Jason Smith have culinary experience. Jason worked for years as a cook for Hoag’s Catering, Holly said, and though Holly has spent the past 18 years as a hair stylist, she previously had food service experience through Penn State. More importantly, cooking has always been a big part of her life.
“I always was in the kitchen with my grandmother cooking. And so I’ve cooked all my life, cooked for everybody in the neighborhood. I still cook for everybody,” Holly Smith said.
The couple decided to take the plunge last fall and since then have installed new equipment while getting the space ready for its new life as the Red Roost Diner.
Part of the diner’s community-oriented nature will be reflected in what Holly Smith called the “hunger board.” On it will be tickets for anyone who is struggling to take and turn in for a free meal.
Community members can also pay for a ticket to be added to the board
“If you’re hungry and you’re down on your luck, there will be tickets on this board, and you can grab a ticket, come up to the counter and you get a meal,” she said. “It will be there and if you can afford one to give one, and if you need one to take one,” she said.
After she posted the idea on Facebook, it got an overwhelmingly positive response. A church volunteered to pay for 20 tickets a month, and the organizers of Milesburg’s Duckstock charity event also reached out about buying tickets, she said.
“I’ve had a lot of people, over 300 people in one night, tell me how this is a blessing, how they’ll buy tickets, how they can’t wait to come in and eat,” Holly Smith said.
The Red Roost Diner will be open every day except Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Holly Smith said that she expects hours will extend to 8 p.m. after they hire some additional help, and that she anticipates the diner will open earlier for fishing and hunting seasons.
For updates, visit the Red Roost Diner Facebook page.
