Was in Pottstown, Pennsylvania today for an unrelated reason, and thought I’d check out a few spots of relevance to music history, specifically Hall & Oates history.
Their 1973 album Abandoned Luncheonette was inspired by the old Rosedale Diner that used to stand here, operated by local businessman Bill Faulk. He’s the one credited on the liner notes as “The Man on Route 724" and the title song is allegedly inspired by him (he was a sergeant in the Army and did wind up with a younger woman who started out working in the diner). The story goes that Daryl Hall’s parents took him to the diner frequently as a kid, and he had a lot of happy childhood memories there.
Bill Faulk opened the Rosedale Diner in 1949 at the intersection of Rosedale Street and East High Street in the Rosedale neighborhood of Pottstown. The building itself was built by the Fodero Dining Car Company of Bloomfield, New Jersey, with a brick kitchen wing constructed on site. The land was leased from the Nagle Motors Dodge dealership next door, and the diner did a steady business - helped by its proximity to the Sunnybrook Ballroom, a major venue for big band, jazz, and, later, rock and R&B acts. Many of the artists performing there would eat at the Rosedale while in town, including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dorsey, and many others.
Faulk did well enough, anyway, that he was able to add the optional entrance vestibule from Fodero in 1957. Unfortunately, he was on a ground lease, and, apparently, turned down several offers from Nagle Motors Dodge to buy the land outright. Nagle sold out to the McDonald’s Corporation in 1965, and Faulk and his Rosedale Diner were evicted to make way for a new franchise.
Faulk bought some land on both sides of Rt 724 in East Coventry Township, in what was then a very rural and lightly trafficked area outside Pottstown and had the diner dumped there, 25ft off the road. He never put it on a permanent foundation, connected utilities, or cut in a driveway or parking lot, and instead, just let it sit vacant and deteriorating.
The McDonald’s experience had convinced him that fast food was the future, so, instead, he built his own fast food hamburger restaurant on his other land across the street, Togg’s Drive-In, which opened in 1966. Apparently, Daryl Hall’s grandmother lived close by, and he was surprised to see the diner where he had had many happy meals as a child suddenly appear in the woods near her house, rotting and decaying.
In 1973, Hall and Oates stopped by and got permission to take a picture of the old diner for their new album cover, but were specifically prohibited from going inside. They went in anyway, and got a picture sitting in a booth, before Bill Faulk called the police and chased them off. The close-up headshots on the album cover had to be taken at another diner parked on the grounds of the Imperial Shell Homes prefab house plant in Berlin, New Jersey. They did send Faulk a T-shirt and an autographed copy of Abandoned Lunchonette, said to be the first off the presses, as thanks.
At first, nothing much changed. The album didn’t make that big of an impact, but, as Hall & Oates reached greater success toward the end of the decade, Abandoned Luncheonette was re-released as a single and did much better the second time around. From around 1977 onward, hordes of fans started descending on the abandoned diner, taking pictures and stealing anything they could as souvenirs. Faulk would chase them off and call the police, but the sudden attention caused the building’s rate of deterioration to increase significantly.
Unfortunately, Togg’s Drive-In was not successful, struggling from the start due to its poor location. In 1982, Faulk shut it down for a light remodeling, reopening in 1983 as Pizza World. At around that time, East Coventry Township served him notice that the diner was an attractive nuisance and eyesore and had to be removed. Daryl Hall hired a local real estate agent to investigate the possibility of buying it, but they couldn’t come to terms. Faulk stripped off the stainless steel skin and sold it for scrap, and the rest was demolished by the local volunteer fire company in a controlled burn. Shortly before, Hall & Oates stopped their tour bus at Pizza World on their way to a show in Philadelphia and took some pictures, but were chased away by Bill Faulk’s daughter.
Pizza World, unfortunately, seemed to do even worse than Togg’s had, and closed in 1991. Faulk lost ownership of the lot across the street when it was seized by the county for unpaid property taxes, but he managed to hold on to the Togg’s/Pizza World property and would regularly visit to inspect it until about 2002 or 2003, when ill health stopped him from making the drive, he died in 2007, and I believe the property is still owned by his daughters. The building has been closed since 1991, and is now badly overgrown and with a partially collapsed roof causing extensive water damage and black mold inside.
Somewhat ironically, RT724 is now very congested with lots of businesses nearby, including a pizza place and a coffee shop barely 1,000 ft away, and a traditional diner has opened in the shopping center next to the McDonald’s at Rosedale & High. Maybe if he had just been able to hold on for a few more years.