Update: A farewell from my colleague Sarah Hinman Ryan.

Original post: The Miss Albany Diner, a fixture in the city’s warehouse district since 1941, will close after lunch service next Friday (2/10). It has been sold to a real-estate company held by the owners of Wolff’s Biergarten, located next door to the diner’s 893 Broadway location. There are no immediate plans to reopen it as a diner, says Matt Baumgartner, who bought the diner with partners Jimmy and Demetra Vann, with whom he co-owns Wolff’s and The Olde English Pub & Pantry, also on Broadway in Albany.

Jane Brown, who bought the diner with her late husband, Cliff, in 1988 and has run it since, is in her late 70s and is retiring. Cliff died in November 2010 at age 83. Their son Bill, who has been the chief cook at the diner since 2003, and Jane are retaining rights to the Miss Albany Diner name and its recipes as part of the sale, Baumgartner says. The Browns’ legal rights to the name and recipes allow them to reopen a Miss Albany Diner in another location, if they wish, or to sell the name and recipes; the new owners are legally precluded from continuing to run the place as Miss Albany Diner.

“I have no interest in going into the diner business,” says Baumgartner, who has eaten breakfast at Miss Albany several times a week since moving to the neighborhood a few years back. However, he says, he and his partners bought the diner property, which includes only the small building and the land beneath it, to give them control over the next incarnation of Wolff’s next-door neighbor.

A purchase price was not disclosed. When the diner was first announced for sale, in late 2009, the Browns were asking $350,000 for it.

The new owners are not immediately opening a new business in the diner, or continuing to run it under another name, because their most recent project, The Olde English, is only four months old. “We’re not ready to start something else right away,” says Baumgartner. He says they plan to consider options for the building, which could include a casual spot catering to the warehouse district’s growing bar scene or leasing the building to another operator.

“There’s no hurry,” Baumgartner says. “We’ll see what we come up with.”

Question: Bearing in the mind the limitations of the building — about six booths and a dozen counter seats, plus a small kitchen — what would you like to see in the diner space?