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The Akron Beacon Journal

Friday, February 2, 1990

FUN FOOD

Fast food the old-fashioned way

Fred’s fare has ‘em coming back again by Jim Carney, Beacon Journal staff writer

Fred Spencer always wanted to run a diner. He knew what he wanted to do when he was 12 years old. (see photo)

Growing up in Cuyahoga Falls, Spencer dreamed of running his own lunch counter, flipping burgers, coming up with interesting blue-plate specials.

His uncle, Fred Gsellman, had operated the lunch counter in the Summit County Courthouse in the 1940s, and Spencer wanted to do the same thing.

So one day he stuck a small advertisement on a stop sign near his home that read: Eat at Fred’s. Then he put up a sign on the shed behind his parents’ house that read: Fred’s Diner.

He put tin foil on the inside walls of the shed so it would look like a real diner.

Soon, the police came around and took his sign off the stop sign.

But his pals came around to eat anyway.

Sadly, after a few days of chowing down on dogs and chips, his buddies got tired of eating his hot dogs.

But Spencer didn’t get tired of food or diners.

In July, after working in the restaurant and food business in the Akron are for several years (Billys in Highland Square, Iacomini’s and Hilarities), Spencer finally opened a Fred’s Diner.

His eatery is a 50-seat restaurant at 930 Home Avenue in Akron. It caters to the breakfast and lunch working crowd and features real diner food – hot roast beef and turkey sandwiches, whipped potatoes and gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, ham lunch specials, bean soup, burgers, home fries and fried eggs.

“We have a lot of regulars,” said the 30-year-old Spencer. “A lot of guys come in for both breakfast and lunch.”

And when Spencer serves up his diner macaroni and cheese, one customer is known to order a load of it.

“Make me a plate of it,” the customer says.

On a recent visit, I had a tremendous breakfast – two eggs, home fries, corned beef hash and toast for $2.50.

My kids had an assortment of other foods, including a large, juicy cheeseburger and chips for $2.50, a chicken sandwich and cup of chili for $3.50 and creamy, thick milkshakes for $1.25 apiece.

Bottomless cups of coffee are 50 cents.

Fred’s Diner offers a daily breakfast and lunch specials and is open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.