Tom's Diner has been closed since 2005, sitting empty near the Ledgewood Circle in Roxbury.

It's easy to miss among the roadside stores. The neon DINER sign no longer flickers and the red, white and blue rooftop billboard that read Tom's Diner blew apart during Hurricane Irene. It's been replaced with plywood, painted blank white.

This is the newest paint on the building. The red roof has peeled in paper-towel sized sheets, revealing patches of bare aluminum. The trim along the stainless steel piping is chipped and dull.

But there is a string of new Halloween decorations across the door and taped to the windows, and few fresh jack-o'-lanterns sit on the cracked cement entrance steps.

"People come and decorate it every holiday," said Tom Seretis, the third-generation Tom's Diner owner. "Every year, there're Christmas decorations, Fourth of July, Halloween. I never knew who it was, then I heard one of the people was Fred, a mechanic who used to work next door. He was a 'regular.' "

In diner tradition, Seretis didn't know Fred's last name. In diners everywhere, regulars come in every day and talk weather, sports or politics with other regulars for years, even decades, and first names suffice.

The Roxbury area is filled with Tom's Diner regulars - still -- 11 years after it closed.

There was a grassroots movement to save the diner at one point and now there is another. Seretis plans to launch a webpage called Restore Tom's Diner and is gathering financing. He's enlisted the help of Steve Harwin, of Diversified Diners in Cleveland, who has restored about a dozen classic diners to their stainless steel-and-vinyl Americana luster.

Tom's certainly qualifies as a classic. It was built in the early 1930s by the Silk City Diner Co., of Paterson, which made 1,500 railcar-style diners during a 40-year run from 1926 to 1966.

Seretis says Tom's is the second oldest diner in New Jersey, behind the venerable Summit Diner, which opened in 1939. That place, still almost all original, is a tourist destination for diner nuts.

Seretis sees a restored Tom's the same way.

"People come from all over to see the Summit Diner," he said. "These are classics. They are irreplaceable. They are part of America."

For Seretis, the legacy is not just about pop culture landscape. It's a family heirloom -- grill, steam table, booths, counter and all. It's a shiny, stainless-steel gem handed down from grandfather to father to son.

"This is about my family legacy," he said. "It's priceless."

The diner genealogy of Tom's has many branches.

His grandfather, also Tom, was a Greek immigrant working at the Three Brothers Diner in Dover and the Hackettstown Diner when Tom's became available in 1958. He bought it and brought in his son, Frank, who was working at Paul's Diner in Mountain Lakes.

Frank's wife, Pauline, now 84, also worked there, as did a sister named - what else? - Spyridoula.

The diner had a cameo in Cyndi Lauper's 1984 music video for her hit "Time after Time." She prances through the diner in her wild hair and ragbag clothing, and slides into a booth next to her boyfriend.

"I remember my father said, 'Some guys came in they wanted to make a music video. I told them forget it,' " Tom Seretis said. "I said, 'Dad are you crazy?' Call them back!' "

Seretis did not follow his father in the diner business. He worked there plenty, but went into real estate. His father died in 2005. The real estate market began to tank the following year and the diner has been shuttered ever since. That's the short version of the story.

"After the real estate market crashed, I was scrambling to pay bills," Seretis said. "I didn't have the money to restore it."

A few times, the diner was almost auctioned in a sheriff's sale for back taxes but, Seretis said, "We always miraculously came up with the money. We've been grinding it out."

All the while, he had a blueprint for saving the diner - from fixtures to food.

"I have plans for everything, from a new kitchen right down to the burger blend," he said. "I have volunteers who want to help."

In the past few years, Seretis said, he's turned down significant offers from Wawa Inc., which likes the diner's prime location. He also said there's been pressure from town.

"They hit me with violations and I repair everything they ask," he said.

Roxbury Councilman Bob DeFillippo said the diner has been in disrepair for too long.

"I don't think you would find anybody in town or on the council who wouldn't want to see Tom's Diner return to its glory days," DeFillippo said. "People know it's an important landmark in town. But now it's deteriorated to the point of being an eyesore and nothing is being done. I think there is a certain frustration with that."

Seretis said help is on its way. He said Harwin, the Cleveland restorer, told him the diner was in pretty good shape and offered his expertise to bring it back. The television program "Ultimate Restorations" has been in touch. He's reached out to Lauper who, he said, 'loved the diner.' "

"Things are beginning to click," he said. "It's taken a long time, but it's finally coming together."

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.