In 1953, just days after four-lane Route 22 opened in Blairsville, Emerson Dean opened Dean's Diner. His timing was perfect.

Americans were rekindling their love affair with the roadside diner, and business at Dean's quickly took off. By the time his son, Darrell, took the reins in 1965, it was already an Indiana County landmark. A half-century later, the diner's owners are Kevin and Breck Dean, Darrell's sons, and its reputation continues to grow.

"It's definitely a fixture," says Kevin Dean. "It's amazing how when I travel and tell people I'm from Western Pennsylvania, they tell me they've eaten at Dean's Diner."

It's with a heavy heart, then, that the brothers -- who both live out of the area and have pursued different careers -- have put Dean's Diner up for sale. When their father died at age 68 in 2004, he wanted his sons to continue the tradition. They tried for more than a year to run it remotely, but in the end, it simply proved too difficult. So in early 2006, they quietly put the diner on the market. It was so quiet that few people outside the family knew it was available as a turnkey operation for $575,000.

"To be honest, we were afraid of negative publicity," says Kevin Dean, who works for Microsoft in Virginia. "We weren't sure how either our customers or employees would react. So there was a sense of 'we better keep this quiet.' "

Not that anyone could blame them. As the sale of Kennywood Park in West Mifflin recently illustrated, few family-owned businesses make it to a second or third generation. This one actually traces it roots back more than 75 years. It's one of a half-dozen diners owned and operated by the Dean clan.

Harry P. Dean, Kevin Dean's great-grandfather, pioneered the chain in 1927 when he purchased a Ward & Dickinson diner and placed it on the corner of Seventh and Philadelphia streets in Indiana. By the 1940s, the family had four more in Blairsville, Forest Hills and New Castle. (A sixth Dean's courted customers on U.S. 22 in Huntingdon, but it was owned by a Dean cousin, Bill Henning.)

The only remaining Dean's Diner replaced one in downtown Blairsville when the Old William Penn Highway was realigned. It is a classic art deco-style Fodero diner with a stainless-steel interior trimmed in green "Flexglass." Built in New Jersey in the early 1950s at a cost of $45,000, it is one of the last Fodero diners built in one section.

The diner car, which has nine booths and a long, Formica-topped counter, seats 45 customers. An adjoining dining room, added in 1957 and expanded in 1988, has room for 100 more. The light green color scheme is offset by a pink terrazzo floor dotted with green diamonds.

While Mr. Dean and his brother declined to share its exact revenue, they say the restaurant has "grown consistently" over the years, thanks, in part, to its reputation for having some of the best homemade pies in the region. Workers make between 20 and 25 pies from scratch each day in its on-site bakery. An average of 350 customers pass through its doors each day, necessitating a staff of 35 full- and part-time workers.

Many who eat there, of course, are road-weary travelers on route to some out-of-town destination. Generations of Penn Staters have used Dean's as a milepost on trips home (it's exactly one hour from Downtown Pittsburgh). It also draws its fair share of local traffic.

"It's amazing how many regulars there are, having the same breakfast at the same time every day," says Kevin Dean.

Buyers must obviously have a passion for the restaurant industry. It's probably best suited to someone who could be on-site on a regular basis, Mr. Dean says. The four-acre property includes two other buildings: a four-car garage with a three-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot apartment on the second floor, and a second garage that measures 1,200 square feet.

Wherever the new owner chooses to live, Mr. Dean hopes he or she will continue to foster the diner's relationship with the local community. His father was once president of the Indiana County Tourist Bureau and a director of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. As such, he hosted any number of community groups at the diner. He was known for sending food and coffee from the diner to firefighters during emergencies.

"He was into the community," Mr. Dean said. "So the extent to which the new owner is also part of this small town" is crucial in taking it to the next level.

"We feel pretty strongly that if someone puts their livelihood into it, its potential is even greater," agrees his brother, Breck.

For more information on Dean's Diner, 2175 Route 22, Blairsville, contact Kevin Dean at 434-979-8300 or dkevindean@hotmail.com.