Noted Beacon diner getting new life

Partners buy Yankee Clipper

By Craig Wolf
Poughkeepsie Journal

The long-closed Yankee Clipper Diner here will reopen under new ownership with the old name.

Well-known for its decades in business and a time when Paul Newman used a well-worn interior for key scenes for the movie, ''Nobody's Fool,'' the diner was replaced by a shiny new one, only to close after an Aug. 26, 2000, fire.

The proprietors of the Alexis Diner on Route 9W in Newburgh, Spyros Varnavides and John Zacharias, have acquired the site at 397 Main St. and begun overhauling its interior.

Varnavides said he hopes to have renovations done by the end of February or the first week of March. ''We'll keep the same name ...everybody seems to know the name,'' he said.

Welcomed return

Word that the city would again have a diner was welcomed, even by competitors.

''Still, Beacon needs more restaurants and more different foods,'' said Skender Berisha, owner of Brother's Trattoria two blocks away, which recently more than doubled its space.

''Sounds good,'' said Felicia Walker, who runs the Beacon Community Center. ''It's nice to have what has been kind of a landmark in Beacon reopening.''

Art galleries have begun opening, anticipating tourists to the Dia:Beacon modern art museum that will open May 18. Business people have had doubts about whether enough eating places exist to serve the flow.

Newburgh establishment

Varnavides and Zacharias have been in business at the Newburgh diner 12 years. It was called Lexus until the car maker of the same name forced them to stop using it. Varnavides said the Beacon kitchen is being rebuilt and the interior remodeled, rearranged and refurnished.

A typical, varied diner menu at ''reasonable'' pricing is planned, but no special cuisine or theme. ''The theme will be, come eat a lot and eat in a clean place. People have to come into a place and get good service, get a clean place and have good food,'' Varnavides said.

Records at the Dutchess County Clerk's office show Khaled ''John'' Baroud of New Windsor bought the diner from David Kyriazis in 1987. Baroud called it the Tiffany Diner. After the 1994 Newman movie, he invested heavily to trade the old diner for a new, larger one. In 1998, he reopened, taking the original name, Yankee Clipper, after a famous 1930s airplane.

Records show Baroud took on nearly $500,000 in debt, most for a mortgage with ORIX Credit Alliance Inc. Other creditors filed claims for debts. In June 2002, Baroud gave a deed to PMC Diners Inc. of New Jersey to avert a foreclosure, giving up the property.