North Stonington - In less than three months, two of the town's most well-known local landmarks have been torn down.

Last March, the Watermark Cafe, in the center of the town's historic village, succumbed to record rainfall and flooding. As a result, the half of the building that housed the cafe was demolished.

On Wednesday morning, workers from A Beautiful Painting and Remodeling Co. LLC tore down the 100-year-old stucco building that for 74 years housed the Dew Drop Inn.

"Both parts are very sad, but we have to face reality in regard to the condition of the building. The Dew Drop was taken down looking at the reality and the outcome of the situation. The natural disaster of the flood was another situation," First Selectmen Nicholas Mullane II said.

First opening its doors in 1918, under the ownership of Curtis and Ethel Moussie, The Dew Drop Inn was the place for a steaming cup of five-cent coffee and a down-home style breakfast on Sunday morning. The landmark Route 2 diner was a staple for breakfast, lunch and dinner six days a week. On Tuesday, however, the restaurant was closed.

In 1991, Steven Slosberg, a columnist for The Day, wrote that the diner was in the perfect place to draw customers driving to and from the casinos.

"It's the location, certainly, but it's also the Dew Drop, the nonconforming use, the sags and structural woes, the griddle, deep fryers and all. It is a fixture in the region's vocabulary as well as its gullet," Slosberg wrote.

Omelets, home fries, scrambled eggs and bacon, ribeye steak, beef stew, fried scallops and pork chops were just some of the delectable dishes flung onto the tables of hungry diner patrons for 74 years.

Then in October 1992, the Dew Drop closed its doors when Curtis Moussie retired. A year and a half later, Eric and Mary Ann DeFossee, of Pawcatuck, signed a five-year lease for the restaurant. It opened in June 1994, but closed six months later, when the DeFossees were no longer able to pay rent and renovation debts.

The diner, then owned by the Mystic Seaport, was renamed as Rosie's Around the Clock Grill in 2000. The grill closed in 2006, and for the last four years the once-bustling building was left empty in the dusty lot on Route 2.

When the town purchased the Hewitt property in 2008, the former diner, which sits on the property, came with it. Restaurateur Fotis Georgiadis pays the town $135 a month in rent.

Petrit Marku, project manger for the demolition, excavation and rebuilding project, said the decrepit building had no foundation, slanted walls and poor structural features.

He advised Georgiadis to raze the restaurant and rebuild at a cost of $650,000.

"This one has no character, it's just sitting on the ground," Marku said.

Bon Appétit, a new 3,000-square-foot, family-style Italian restaurant, will have an outdoor patio and is expected to open by Nov. 1, Marku said.

"The chef comes from Italy," Marku said. "I'm excited to give the people a new place, it will be beautiful."

j.hanckel@theday.com