"Sorry, Hon. You're too late for breakfast.&

On Christmas Eve I blipped a raging fire at Elena's Soul bar which is 5 blocks from my home. It caused a huge disruption in the neighborhood which has barely subsided even now. Worst was the trolleys not running past it for at least a week.

The best news is that there were no deaths or loss of home --human or otherwise. All the destroyed spaces were either business or storage. The bar was in a 3-story building dating from around 1905. That is being ripped down and most of it's already gone.

One thing I kept being grateful for was that the Cedar Park Diner, which opened in the fully renovated single-story building next door to the bar about one year ago, seemed to have come out unscathed. The "OPEN" sign was lit in the front window, after all.

But today I was hungry for a nice 3-egg omelette, so I walked all the way to the door of the eatery. I could not believe my eyes when I saw what's in this picture, taken with my camera against the front window.

The roof has collapsed into the dining room. What's extra-strange is that there was no dirt in the ceiling (because of the recent renovation), and they have the lighting on (to find things to be salvaged) exactly as they would to serve hungry patrons. The effect is that it looks like a movie set more than a destroyed building.

This was the only diner in the neighborhood! To Americans this is important because it's a style of eating we invented that almost never correctly duplicated outside the US & Canada. Most of us love "diner food," we can't be fooled by imitations or short cuts, and it's hard-wired into our minds. This was the first diner of the neighborhood Renaissance, which had already brought in a slew of cafes and trendy ethnic kitchens.

I ate in the place only about half a dozen times, but I was always pleased when I did, A well-run local family business that served good food at good prices, they opened 7am-3pm. Let's hope this place comes back to life very soon.