Burns based restaurant off Hopper’s 1942 painting of city diner at night
By Ryan Tibbs
STANLEY — On an empty street corner in the middle of the night, the only sign of life is the yellow lights inside a diner that illuminate the streets in a greenish glow. A single server provides drinks to the three guests sitting at the stools inside. This is Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting “Nighthawks” and it serves as the inspiration for a new diner opening in Stanley.
The restaurant is connected to the Daughter of the Stars Theater on Main Street and both are owned by Patrick Burns. He wants the restaurant to be themed around art.
“The building is art and hopefully the food is art,” Burns said.
When he initially opened the theater, Burns planned on serving theater snacks such as popcorn for the customers, but he found that that wasn’t good enough. Now, with the plan to expand into a restaurant, they have a three-section menu for sandwiches, salads and hot foods.
Burns estimates that the building itself is a century old based on writing found on a piece of wood in the theater.
Burns designed part of the restaurant to resemble the famous painting. The building has a corner window with two square spots next to it that will be painted in to look like windows viewing the inside of the restaurant. This will create a similar look to that of “Nighthawks.”
The other side controlling the design of the restaurant has been the regulations and standards from the health department. With the building being so old, it has required time-intensive work to get the building to follow these regulations. Approval by the health department is one of the final hurdles in the process, and until that is secured, Burns shies away from projecting a specific starting date.
“When this building was built, it was built to the standards of 1926,” he said.
On the other hand, there is some charm to the age of the building that Burns doesn’t want to get rid of. The floor of the theater remains the same original wood flooring. This combined with the panned ceiling and configuration of the stage helps with the acoustics of the room.
The room also has a lot of open space to allow them to set up various events inside.
(Photo by Ryan Tibbs)
“We can do a situation with a teaching or a dance floor configuration.”
Burns hopes for the restaurant and theater to become a place for community gatherings. He currently plans to open Thursdays through Saturdays before beginning to open on weeknights. Eventually he’d like it to also serve as a coffee shop in the mornings.
Besides the food and the inspiration of the painting, another form of art the new restaurant and theater will feature is its musical performances. They hope to host open mic and karaoke nights in the theater room. They also have recording equipment set up in the back to record the performers.
There are two paintings on the wall of the theater that can be signed by the bands and open mic performers that come to the theater. Burns called them the Wall of Courage and the Wall of Talent.
With the restaurant and theater having a good spot along the street, Burns hopes for a lot of traffic to come through that may notice a similarity to “Nighthawks” and be curious to step inside. He hopes that this along with the community aspect of the restaurant will bring in a lot of business.
“If we’re doing it right, word of mouth is gonna spread and we’ll do just fine.”
For more information about the Daughter of the Stars Theater,
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