Gallery Is Former Eatery : Artist Cooks Up Memories in Diner Store

There’s no free lunch at Uncle Bob’s Diner. In fact there’s no lunch at all--no sunny side up, no French fries with gravy, no coffee.

The only food on Jerry Berta’s menu nourishes the soul.

All that’s cooking in the kitchen of what is now the Diner Store are other diners--only smaller.

Berta, a 37-year-old sculptor, has been creating ceramic diners for 12 years--from Art Deco salt-and-pepper shakers to diners 8 inches high and 15 inches long with working neon signs.

The diner-within-a-diner has fascinated Berta for years. But the chance to set up his gallery in Uncle Bob’s Diner, which was believed to be Michigan’s last remaining diner when it closed 15 years ago, was more than he had hoped for.

“People all over knew about Uncle Bob’s,” Berta said. “I had a guy from Madison, Wisconsin, write to me, saying he’d spent every night for four years in the ‘50s at this place.”

Berta came across the 41-year-old, abandoned diner in Flint in 1986, bought it for $2,000 and had mobile home transporters move it 125 miles to the tiny town of Rockford, north of Grand Rapids, where he has lived with his artist wife for 15 years.

He has spent the last year working on the 53-by-32-foot eatery to restore its original pink Formica ceilings, porcelain enamel exterior and stainless steel sunburst patterns.

“It looks just the same as in 1947, when it was built,” Berta says, swiveling on one of the diner’s original stools.

While the gallery doesn’t open for business until June 15, the opening reception is Friday. The project has cost him about $50,000.

“It sounds real crazy, but it’s going to be great making diners in a diner,” says Berta, sporting a tuxedo with bright-red bow tie and high-top sneakers to match.

“Lots of times, people are intimidated when they walk into a gallery. People are going to feel real comfortable when they walk in here.”

The kitchen will be his studio, and the counters and shelves where miniature boxes of cereal undoubtedly sat years ago will be the showplace for his art, which ranges in price from $60 to about $1,000.

Inside, some of the diners are tiny Coca-Cola signs and ceramic utensils and food on countertops.

Berta said he became intrigued with creating his own interpretations of the nearly extinct eateries after designing tiny ceramic rooms.

“I did a diner one day and it was my favorite, so I just kept going,” he says.

Berta and his wife, Madeline Kaczmarczyk, who creates ceramic teapot sculptures and also will exhibit her work at the gallery, do the majority of their business at art fairs and exhibits across the country.

And while they don’t know how strong business will be in this relatively conservative region in southwest Michigan, the two Detroit natives hope to draw potential customers from as far away as their hometown and Chicago.