Boots Dairyette, closed earlier this year, should reemerge within weeks on West Beaver Avenue, new store owner Fred McGovern said.
The popular State College take-out eatery and convenience store, established in 1959, shut down without any apparent public explanation. It had done business for roughly two decades on the first floor of the Graduate apartment building, at West Beaver Avenue and South Atherton Street.
GN Associates, which controls the building, used the summer to convert much of the former Boots space for residential use.
But a portion of the first-floor commercial area has remained intact.
That, McGovern said, is where he’s forming a smaller, reworked version of Boots, to do business now as Boots Convenience Store.
A longtime Boots employee, he declined to talk specifics about the former Boots store’s ownership and decline. But he wants to keep alive the store’s longtime State College presence, he said, having taken over the operation.
McGovern, a State College-area resident since 1988, grew up in Zion. He said renovations to prepare for the new Boots are under way now; his plans include provisions for limited food offerings, such as subs, meatballs and pulled pork.
Boots will cater largely to people who live in the Graduate and to walk-in traffic, McGovern said. He is hoping to open the store by early December, he said.
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