This Philly diner is so close to a graveyard it feels like you’re inside of it

Whenever a customer at Bob’s Diner in Roxborough asks owner Jim Evans for the recipe behind one of his dishes, Evans draws their attention to the windows on the side of his stainless steel dining car.

“I point out to the cemetery and tell them, ‘Those were the people that got our recipes,’” he said.

Few dare to ask again, though Evans admits that may be because they don’t always get his joke. Some folks are even stiffer than his neighbors.

Nestled on a quarter-acre plot on Ridge Avenue between a nondenominational church and Leverington Cemetery, at Bob’s Diner you can get fluffy pancakes with a reminder of your own mortality on the side. The diner is so close to the 18th-century graveyard next door, it looks like it could be part of it from the outside, you feel like you’re in it on the inside, and folks researching the place online can’t tell the difference.

“We’ve had people come out and say, ‘I did a Google Maps search and we want to see the diner that’s in a cemetery,’” Evans said. “I say, ‘We’re not in a cemetery, we’re on the outskirts.’”

I went to Bob’s for the first time last week at the advice of my friend and former Daily News colleague Drew McQuade, who shares my penchant for the peculiar things in Philly.

Walking up to the silver-and-red striped dining car, I was smacked in the face by the comforting smell of a greasy spoon, which I’ll take over a silver one any day.

The sign atop the building proclaimed the diner to be “A Monumental Eating Experience” (clever!) and a blue banner out front listed its hours as 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., so Bob’s is clearly not a late-night haunt. Nobody’s working the graveyard shift here.

Inside the rectangular car, the ceilings were low, the furniture was upholstered in blue, and the chef was working behind the Formica counter on an open grill.

The hostess told me to sit anywhere, so I grabbed the last free table with a view of the cemetery. To my right were a group of high school girls and to my left were two women and a baby. Nobody seemed to mind all the dead folks outside.

My server was quick, kind, and called me “hun” — three hallmarks of an excellent diner waitress. She reminded me of the veteran servers who taught me so much about life when I worked at Pamela’s Diner in Pittsburgh during college. I always say I got as much of an education slinging pancakes as I did at school.

I looked out of the window and marveled at how close the cemetery was and at how one of the nearest tombstones had the last name of one of my exes on it. I knew that dude was a grave mistake from the beginning.

A few minutes later, my server delivered one of the best turkey clubs I’ve ever had (there weren’t just pieces of bacon on this thing, there were layers!) and my side of crispy fries was so stacked it had to be put on a larger plate to catch the overflow. It was easy to see why Bob’s made The Inquirer’s most recent list of The 76 most vital Philly restaurants.

After finishing my lunch, I walked around Leverington Cemetery. Founded in 1745, it’s the last resting place of early settlers of Roxborough, Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers, and “numerous ordinary people who did extraordinary things,” according to a sign at the gate.

As I stood among the tombstones, the nine-acre cemetery seemed to stretch on forever. Some old headstones were so worn down it was impossible to read them, others were toppled or overgrown, and yet the grounds were beautifully well-kept. In 2009, Leverington even served as a setting for an episode of CBS’ Cold Case.

Not to be outdone, Bob’s has had its star turn, too. A scene in the 1988 movie Stealing Home, starring Jodie Foster and Mark Harmon, was filmed at the diner.

Clearly, both the cemetery and the diner are Philly institutions. I wanted to know more about them and whether there have been any unusual happenings because of their proximity. So I called Evans, who bought the diner from the eponymous Bob Harmer in 1993.

“Everybody looks at the diner the first time and says, ‘What the heck is a diner doing in a cemetery?’ I was one as well, but it didn’t really bother me,” Evans said.

He told me that before it was Bob’s, the restaurant was called Jim Koller’s Diner, and prior to that, it was the 20th Century Diner. Evans said the dining car itself — which was manufactured by the Jerry O’Mahony Diner Company — was originally located in Center City somewhere, before being transported to Ridge Avenue. He wasn’t sure if the nearby church or cemetery sold the land it sits on now.

Diving into The Inquirer archives, I found that the 20th Century Diner, which was advertised as being in an O’Mahony dining car, opened on Filbert Street near Reading Terminal Market in 1939, which would make it 87 years old.

The first want ads in our archives for the 20th Century Diner at its current location at 6053 Ridge Avenue appeared in 1942, which means the dining car has been in that spot for at least 84 years. This diner and its place in Philadelphia predate the Flyers, the LOVE statue, and all but a handful of Philly restaurants.

The diner’s rich history is part of the reason why when Evans put Bob’s up for sale two years ago, he did so on the condition that the new owner keep it as a diner. He’s still waiting for the right offer. It’s a big undertaking, after all.

Generations of Philadelphians have eaten at Bob’s, and one couple even had their engagement photos taken there. With the cemetery next door still selling open plots, and funeral homes a few blocks down on either side of the street, many people come in for family meals after laying their loved ones to rest.

In his 33 years at the diner, Evans said he’s only had one eerie experience. About a week after he bought the place, he was alone inside one night after it closed. He’d left a set of keys to the diner at his house for some friends so they could meet him at his new business.

Around 10:45 p.m., Evans went into the diner’s basement, and shortly thereafter he heard three loud bangs on the floor above his head. Assuming his friends had arrived, he went upstairs, but nobody was there. Maybe it was just the sound of the building settling, or trucks going by, he thought. He returned to the basement and it happened again, three bangs — this time, even louder.

“Now I think these guys are jerking me around because the cemetery is right there and it was a full moon. It was a perfect setting for a Twilight Zone episode,” he said.

But again, there was nobody upstairs. He went back down and at 10 of midnight, the banging returned, but now it sounded “like someone hitting the floor with a sledgehammer.” Evans ran up yelling “Where the hell are you?!?” to his friends, but they weren’t there. Nobody was.

He saw the full moon illuminating the gravestones and felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Evans then addressed the permanent residents next door.

“I said, ‘You guys have been here a lot longer than I have. I’m getting out,’ and I grabbed my stuff and left,” he said.

Evans’ friends told him they never came that night, and they thought he was nuts when he told them the story.

“I’ve been there till 3 or 4 in the morning doing repairs, and it’s never happened again. I always say it was just the neighbors saying hello and seeing if I was an a-hole or not,” Evans said. “Maybe if I was, they would still be coming to visit me.”