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Diner Food Miniature golf course.

Abandoned Dinerland (Closed)

Field review by the editors.

Rockford, Michigan

A row of classic diners hides a miniature golf course with big diner-food hazards. "Dinerland" opened in 1991, closed in Oct. 2011, and is currently standing but abandoned. Here's our review from when the place was still open....

The diner-food-themed mini-golf course was built in 1993, and evidently abandoned when original owner Jerry Barta sold the attraction in 2002.

Then Barta came back and promised that the course would receive "a major overhaul soon." The large diner food obstacles were designed by Jerry, who sells his other art at one of the four diners that he's moved here. The mini-golf sits behind Rosie's Diner, which was used as the location for the 1970s Bounty paper towel commercials featuring Nancy Walker as "Rosie" the waitress. Attractions built around TV celebrities usually don't last long, but Rosie's has survived because it really is a functioning, food-serving diner.

Update: Barta sold Dinerland again in January 2006; it shut down in October 2011. The trashed Rosie's was purchased in late 2023 with a plan to restore it and move it to Millersburg, Missouri.

Abandoned Dinerland

Directions:
US Hwy 131 exit 101. Take Hwy 57 east less than a mile.
Status:
Closed

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