Some people leave their hometown at a young age and never look back. Tom Manning, 55, isn't one of them.

"My roots have always stayed here in Portland," Manning said Wednesday amid the post-election breakfast buzz at the newly resurrected Miss Portland Diner on Marginal Way.

His Miss Portland Diner.

To some, it might make no sense whatsoever. Manning, a child of Munjoy Hill who went to Cathedral grammar school and Cheverus High School before going to work for Newsweek in New York City 32 years ago, knows a lot more about running a magazine's business office than he does about owning and operating a restaurant.

But this much he does know: The Worcester Lunch Car diner, in its third location since it opened on Forest Avenue in 1949, is a piece of Portland's past. And Manning, who left for the Big Apple at age 23 and rose to become Newsweek's director of administration, has a thing for local history.

"Look at the Portland Observatory," he said. "When I was a kid, you could never go up there -- with all the broken stairs and stuff. I've always had a good feeling about how (the city) saved that thing and brought it back. And I kind of felt this might be a little similar. I knew the city was looking for someone to step up."

He's got that right. After accepting the diner as a gift from Randall Chasse in 2004, the city tried and failed to find a new owner. Three years ago, the once-bustling diner was removed from its previous site a short distance down Marginal Way and put into mothballs.

Enter Manning, who often visited his family and friends in Portland and kept track of local goings-on via his Blackberry.

"One day we're walking down 8th Ave. (in Manhattan) and I said to my wife, 'What do you think about buying the Miss Portland Diner?'" he recalled. "And she looked at me and said, 'What?'"

Two years and $1.2 million later, the Miss Portland opened last week without fanfare -- the idea, Manning said, was to quietly break in his 25-person staff before holding a grand opening next month. But by Saturday, the diner car and adjacent 48-seat dining room were packed.

"This is our second time here," said Chellie Pingree, newly elected to be the 1st District U.S. House representative, as she settled into a gleaming booth. She first came by on Saturday to campaign; now she was back with two staffers for a celebratory breakfast of steak and eggs.

"It's great," Pingree said. "It's hard to beat these old diners."

Sitting nearby on a counter stool, Arthur Fink of Peaks Island said he'd just dropped off his car at nearby Century Tire and "instead of waiting there, I could actually walk someplace."

"It's an interesting mix of the old and new" said Fink, who once served on the city's historic preservation commission. "This place has character."

Manning, who plans to move with his wife and three daughters from New Jersey to Portland in the next year or two, said he realizes this isn't the best time to open a restaurant. But as the rest of the Bayside neighborhood expands outward, he'll take his chances.

"Obviously it's a startup," he said. "But I look at this as something different."

Call it a vote for Bayside's future -- with a slice of history on the side.

Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at bnemitz@pressherald.com