The Hot Spot Diner, the former Ship’s Chow Hall, at 277 Bath Road, Wiscasset is no more, and the property’s owners would like to see it stay a restaurant, Midcoast Properties General Manager Linda Flagg said. The Hot Spot Diner is back, however, in Dresden. After trying unsuccessfully since Sept. 1 to reach the restaurant’s operators, Lenny Santos and Tarah Diffin, Wiscasset Newspaper on Tuesday received an email from Diffin stating Hot Spot has reopened at 542 Gardiner Road, Dresden.

Flagg said Jim and Liz Duffy of New Jersey and, in summer, Boothbay, own Midcoast Properties, which, Flagg explained, owns the seven–acre, Wiscasset property, undeveloped except for the restaurant. The company did not renew Hot Spot’s lease, Flagg said. Wiscasset Newspaper called Midcoast Properties after seeing for sale signs Wednesday, Sept. 1. The site has been under contract, but that fell through in late August, so it is back on the market, for $275,000, for a residential or commercial buyer, Flagg said in the Sept. 1 phone interview.

The company, which also owns Wiscasset Self Storage and Boothbay Self Storage, bought the restaurant property a little over a year ago via a bank foreclosure, Flagg said. “Our goal is for it to be a restaurant again. We bought it ... because we’ve loved owning a local, quaint, breakfast, brunch place and there’s not a lot of those around any longer.”

The diner was successful in Wiscasset, Diffin told Wiscasset Newspaper.