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The 18 Genesee St. restaurant, which opened there in 1951, closed at 2 p.m. An employee confirmed the closure to ÈËÊÞÐÔ½» on Saturday. Owner Rachael Juhl declined comment.

Rachael and her husband, Bill, purchased the Dinerant in 2011, six years after meeting there while she was working as a waitress. The Juhls prided themselves on the attention they paid to the restaurant, a steel railcar perched atop beams over the Owasco River. Their work included renovating the neon signage that has been the subject of many a nighttime photograph over the decades.

The Juhls closed the Dinerant once before, after the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. in March 2020, but they reopened it eight months later. At the time, Bill told ÈËÊÞÐÔ½» he and Rachael hoped the city of Auburn would help them find a buyer for the restaurant the way it has other high-profile properties. The restaurant's market value is $140,100, according to Cayuga County records.

That value, however, doesn't account for the aesthetic and historic significance of the Hunter Dinerant. Along with its '50s iconography, the restaurant is famed for its connection to current U.S. President Joe Biden. His first wife, Neilia Hunter, was the daughter of the restaurant's namesakes and owners, Robert and Louise Hunter. After the death of Neilia and her and Joe's daughter, Naomi, in a 1972 car accident, Biden and his sons, Hunter and Beau, continued to visit the restaurant. Their most recent visit was in 2014, when Joe and the late Beau took a picture with the Juhls there.

Speaking to ÈËÊÞÐÔ½» in 2020, Bill was confident that the restaurant's history, and all the gravy fries and burger melts that come with it, would continue no matter what.

"It's the city's diner, it never was really ours. We're just caretakers of it," he said. "The diner will be back, no matter who owns it. It will always be a part of Auburn."