Owner wants to give diner to city Portland weighs unusual offer

PORTLAND – First he tried to give it away in an essay contest. Then he listed it on eBay. Now the owner of the Miss Portland Diner wants to donate the 54-year-old eatery to the city.

The catch? Randall Chasse’s gift does not include the parcel of land on Marginal Way where the diner now sits, which means that the city would have to move the 2,800-square-foot building to another location.

Chasse, 62, has owned the diner since 1980. He said he wants to “semi-retire” and has enough of a nest egg to give the business away.

He trusts only the city to move the diner to another spot in the Bayside neighborhood where it will thrive.

“I’d hate to see somebody else buy it and run it to the ground,” said Chasse, who wears a purple Miss Portland cap and an apron stained from cooking meatloaf and corned beef hash every day. “The city will do what they want to do with it, and it’ll probably be here for generations to come.”

City officials expressed interest in his offer and plan an appraisal of the Miss Portland, although they are not quite sure what to do with a functioning diner that draws more than 100 people a day.

“The city could sell or lease it or, I suppose, operate it – although that’s not high on my list,” said Lee Urban, Portland’s director of planning and development, and a regular at the diner. “Maybe the city wouldn’t accept the donation until it has a restaurateur who would take it over from the city, either by sale or lease.”

The diner’s exterior resembles a railroad car; the inside still has the original porcelain tiling, marble countertop and pleated steel paneling.

Urban said the Miss Portland’s historic character and warmth would fit in with plans to redevelop the Bayside neighborhood, a once-ignored gateway to the city. But some question whether it makes sense to put a diner on Bayside property that is appreciating in value.

Joe Malone of Malone Commercial Brokers said any parcel would be worth more than the diner, which is valued on the city tax rolls at about $76,000.

But diner expert Will Anderson of Bath said the city would be “crazy” not to take Chasse’s offer. Diners built years ago by actual dining car companies are a dying breed, and only a handful remain in Maine, he said.

“Portland should be proud to have the Miss Portland,” said Anderson, who wrote “Lost Diners and Roadside Restaurants of New York and New England,” and ranks Miss Portland as his second favorite diner in Maine, after the state’s oldest diner, the Palace Diner in Biddeford.

Chasse’s attempt to unload the diner through an essay contest failed when not enough people offered the $100 entry fee. Several years later, in 2001, the eBay listing went nowhere.

Donating the diner does not mean Chasse will walk away from the business with a total loss. Donating the Miss Portland would give him a tax write-off, and his 10,000-square-foot property on Marginal Way, valued at $67,100 in 1991, would likely sell for much more.