ToquiNotes: Recalling a Long-Gone Restaurant and its Extinct Successor, Their Food, and Fun Memories
By Jeff Toquinto on September 26, 2026 from ToquiNotes
I do not know what year it opened locally. I do not know what year it closed locally. I do know at least one restaurant that came after it, and I believe I know what is on the property today.
Years ago, before I was a teen, and even when I was a teen, there was a cool restaurant on old Bridgeport Hill. Even better, there was something that came after it that was a staple of my college days and early 20s.
The initial restaurant, which is the focal point of this blog, is Lum’s. And when doing the standard Google research for this restaurant, I was surprised to learn of its history.
To be honest, until recently during social media scrolling and running across “old restaurants,” I had no idea that Lum’s was a chain. As I found out, it was a substantial chain that was in business for decades.
The history of the restaurant that I thought started and ended in the unincorporated area between Clarksburg and Bridgeport got its start far away from the hills of Appalachia. In fact, the restaurant got its start in Miami Beach in 1956. Even better, the actual genesis was a hot dog stand of the same name.
According to our friends at Google, the brothers Stuart and Clifford S. Perlman were the original owners. And they got things started after purchasing a hot dog stand – Lum’s Hot Dog stand – for the sum of $10,000 in Florida.
In the years that followed, the company grew and grew. It remained famous for its hot dogs served in beer. In fact, it was at the top of the menu during its time as a restaurant.
The eatery got so big that the company, Lum’s Inc., not only was on the New York Stock Exchange, but purchased Ceaser’s Palace. They were that big.
They had 400 locations, most in the continental United States. They also had a few locations in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and even Europe. Eventually, the company would sell to new owners, and those owners would sell to other owners until it officially went under in 1982. I 
would have been about 14 years old when that happened and knew the name better as a local team in the former Babe Ruth League than anything else.
would have been about 14 years old when that happened and knew the name better as a local team in the former Babe Ruth League than anything else.
What I do remember is they had good hot dogs - and I mean really good. If we went (and eating out back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was only a little more common than opening gifts on Christmas Day) you got hot dogs or as I recall, a good hamburger. The hot dogs were actually prepared in beer and, in one of the pictures included from a video I found online, it shows that they were not using high test beer as a legenday Schlitz can sits to the right.
I digress. But, the hot dogs to this day rank up there with as good a hot do as I have ever had and it's been at least 40 years since I had one.
Turns out the hamburgers were part of a chain that Lum’s acquired. That restaurant was Ollie Burger’s. I never heard of it until I looked up information for this article.
That said, I only ate the hot dogs and hamburgers because until I got a bit older, my food choices were the basics – and far from healthy. I 
also confirmed while looking up information and finding a few menus online, Lum’s had quite a selection of food.
also confirmed while looking up information and finding a few menus online, Lum’s had quite a selection of food.
The menu (pictured in this blog) reminds me of Shoney’s or Elby’s. The significant difference? The menu shows they served a lot o different beers. By the time I was drinking beer, Lum’s was long gone. Although it went under in 1982, there were a few independently owned Lum’s that made it all the way until 2017, with the last holdout being in Nebraska. Today, based on what I could find, nothing remains.
What came after the local closure was something I recall with much fondness. The old Star Restaurant.
It was a regular stopping point for myself and my friends after late nights in Fairmont during our college years at The Varsity Club. We would also stop there after trips to Holiday Inn or the former Red Carpet Inn (now Days Inn). The food stop was in rotation with The Canteen, where we stopped after an evening out featured trips to the 212 Pub, the Inn Between, and Biaggio’s (Billy’s for us locals).
Part of the reason for stopping at Star Restaurant was that it was open 24 hours a day. A bigger reason was that it had an all-you-could-eat breakfast bar that ran from around midnight to the early morning hours.
My friends and I put what little money we had in those days to effective use by getting every bit of value from the buffet. I may be wrong, 
but they had a rather good buffet for dinner, too. My memory, like my vision, is fading so I am not as certain.
but they had a rather good buffet for dinner, too. My memory, like my vision, is fading so I am not as certain.
Another memory that I need a little help on is that in the early days of Star Restaurant, or maybe it was a different entity prior to it, was a live deejay and people getting served food in the parking lot – similar to The Satellite, which oddly had its operation about a mile away on the same roadway.
That is one of the few things that I cannot specifically recall and certainly would not mind a few folks providing information on our social media pages. I would love to know what I do not know or be corrected on what I think I know. Please do so on our Facebook and X (Twitter) pages.
One final thing I am more certain of is what is in the area of the long-gone restaurant today. For years, the site was Bob Trickett Buick GMC Cadillac. Today, it is Crown Mitsubishi. I am not certain if the building housing Lum’s was demolished, part of that automotive building that still stands, or was in an area behind it. Heck, it may not have been in that geographical footprint.
Again, correct me if I have it wrong because it happens frequently when going down restaurant memory lane. What I do know is that I enjoyed my few experiences at Lum’s, and I enjoyed what came after it.
Thank you Lum’s and Star Restaurant. You are gone, but not forgotten.
Editor's Note: The exterior of a Lum's (not the local one) is shown above, while hot dogs take a Lum's beer bath in the second image. In the third image, their distinct chili is piled on, while the fourth photo shows some of the burgers made and what appears to be an ice cold draft beer to the top right. Lum's also ended up with a foot long hot dog that was grilled and not steamed in beer, which is shown in the fifth image. Photo below is of a menu from Lum's. No images of Star Restaurant could be found.
.jpg)
