Drive down West DuBois Avenue this month and you will pass a dark storefront where the DuBois Diner used to flip eggs seven days a week. A few blocks over, the space that held DuBois Buffet sits with its sign still up and its doors locked. Out on Rich Highway, Railcar Pizza's wood stone oven has gone cold. Three closures, all confirmed within the past several months, in a town where everybody eventually notices when a place stops turning its lights on.
At the same time, Charlie Chen's Chinese Kitchen is drawing the kind of attention that got it ranked the top restaurant in DuBois for July 2026 on local review trackers, and a new Firehouse Subs has opened its doors this year as well.
The restaurants mentioned here represent a range of dining concepts.
Recent Restaurant Closures
DuBois Diner's menu, by its own description, covered breakfast, lunch, dinner, burgers, soup, salad bar, pie, and ice cream. DuBois Buffet offered an all-you-can-eat spread, while Railcar Pizza served wood stone oven pizzas. DuBois has 57 restaurant listings.
None of these closures made headlines. They didn't need to. In a market this size, a restaurant closing is information that spreads through word of mouth and a locked door faster than any press release could move it. Together, these closures mark changes in DuBois's dining options.
New Restaurants and Other Dining Options
Charlie Chen's Chinese Kitchen didn't try to be a diner with an Asian section on the menu. It opened as a dedicated Chinese kitchen and earned the top spot on local rankings within its first month on the scene. Firehouse Subs is a national chain, but it is a chain built entirely around one category, hot subs, and its DuBois location is new this year rather than an expansion tacked onto an existing general-menu restaurant.
The Public House on Jared opened a few years before this year's wave of closures. As The Courier Express reported, it was built from scratch over seven months by two DuBois natives who wanted to add something the town's existing lineup wasn't offering. In the interview, the co-owners were explicit about the gap they were filling.
"We wanted to take those ideas and those experiences and bring them back to DuBois and offer something that is a little bit different than what is already offered in town."
The Public House on Jared offered craft beer and a menu with its own point of view. The owners even built in a detail for people headed to early shifts: they chose to open at 6 a.m. so customers could grab coffee and a breakfast sandwich on their way to work. Years later, The Public House on Jared remains part of the local dining scene.
Other Local Food Businesses
The area also has established businesses with focused offerings: Meadows Frozen Custard of DuBois, Aegis Coffee Roasters, Calliari's Bakery, and Palumbo's Meat Market.
The Tannery Bar & Grill, based at DuBois Country Club, has built its identity around a specific kind of tavern experience rather than trying to be a family restaurant and a sports bar and a fine-dining option all at once. Hoss's Steak and Sea House does steaks and seafood and doesn't pretend to be anything broader. Buck's Pizza is a pizza place. Luigi's Ristorante, which counts DuBois as one of its original locations alongside Clymer and Washington, is an Italian restaurant that has stayed an Italian restaurant.
DuBois dining offers a range of options at restaurants with different menus and specialties.
What This Means If You're Deciding Where To Eat This Week
If you're a longtime DuBois resident who built dinner plans around the diner or the buffet, the practical fallout is real. Those default options are gone, and the replacement isn't a like-for-like swap. It is a different way of deciding where to eat. Instead of picking the place that can feed everyone in your group regardless of what they're craving, you are now picking based on the specific thing you want that night.
Want something reliable and familiar? Hoss's and Buck's are still doing what they've always done. Want to try what's getting talked about right now? Charlie Chen's earned its current ranking for a reason. Want a locally built option with its own personality? The Public House on Jared was built by people from here and remains part of the local dining scene.
The Greater DuBois Chamber of Commerce keeps an updated directory of the town's food and beverage businesses, which is worth a bookmark if you want to track what's opening next, since this kind of turnover tends to keep moving rather than settle.
The Bigger Picture
DuBois has a range of dining options, including established restaurants and newer openings. The closures and openings described here are changes in the town's restaurant scene.
If you've lived in DuBois long enough to remember when the diner never had an empty booth, this year's developments are worth paying attention to.
Whether you're weighing a move to a specific DuBois block because of what's nearby, or you've been here for twenty years and just want to know where the new coffee roaster set up shop, staying plugged into what's changing on the ground is part of knowing this market. That's true for restaurants, and it's just as true for home values. If you're ever curious what your own DuBois property is worth in a market that keeps shifting, Nelson Realty offers a complimentary market analysis, and Ed Nelson and the team are always glad to talk through what's changing in the neighborhood, food scene included.
