Here’s What Happened to New Bedford’s Jimmie Evans Flyer Diner

The rare classic 1941 double-ended Sterling Streamliner diner known to many in downtown New Bedford as "Jimmie Evans Flyer" met with a tragic ending on Cape Cod some years back.

Jimmie Evans owned the diner when it was across the street from the downtown post office on Pleasant Street. According to a 2000 Cape Cod Times story, Evans was a "former entertainer and Fairhaven postmaster."

Evans sold his business to Norman Welch in the early 1960s. Welch moved the diner to the Route 28 rotary in Pocasset, where it remained until November 2000.

Claire Bergeron purchased the diner from Welch and leased it to various tenants who operated it under such names as Johnny's, Otis Rotary Diner, Mary's Muffins, and Tiny's.

Barbara Lind leased the diner from Bergeron in 1989, operating it as My Tinman Diner, with a Wizard of Oz theme, until a devastating fire in 2000 that destroyed her business – and the Sterling Streamliner. The paper reported that Lind named the diner "in honor of her grandfather, a tinsmith who fashioned toys for her."

In addition to Lind's Wizard of Oz memorabilia that adorned the diner, she also lost POW and veterans memorabilia in the fire.

A new owner brought a new diner to the Bourne location where the original My Tin Man Diner stood. Tenants have included Hoagies Diner, The Diner, and now Tuk Tuk Thai.

William Taylor of Wareham and Bourne confessed to setting fire to My Tinman Diner in 2002. Taylor received a five-year prison sentence for the crime. His wife worked at the diner and Taylor may have been jealous of the men she met while employed there.

Lind and her daughter opened a new version of My Tinman Diner in a storefront in North Falmouth in 2008, but it only lasted a few years, closing in 2011.

Tuk Tuk Thai remains going strong in the current diner on the site.

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Dinerville.com claims the remains of original Streamliner diner are in storage in Westport and are in "very bad shape." That claim has not been verified, but in January 2020, Fun 107's Gazelle and WBSM's Tim Weisberg visited the remains of Quincy's Eddie's Diner and New Jersey's Travelers Diner at the site of Handy Hill Creamery in Westport in 2020.

By the way, if you're nostalgic for the Jimmie Evans Flyer, you can purchase the classic matchbook seen in these photos on eBay right now.