FARMINGTON – Frank Armijo, short order cook, stood in front of the restaurant stove at the Farmington Diner Monday morning whipping up a breakfast special – scrambled eggs, crispy home fries, bacon and toast. With the flick of his wrist, the food was on the plate, and Armijo was on to the next order.

With rumors that it might be shut down – a developer or developers have signed purchase and sale agreements with property owners along the strip, including the restaurant, town officials say – life is going on pretty much as usual at the diner.

On any given morning, Armijo bangs out breakfast specials, griddlecakes, and the odd fried clam with seemingly superhuman speed, occasionally joking with a customer through the kitchen window while he works.

Trish Stevens, a waitress at the diner for the past 11 years, simultaneously takes orders, payments, and compliments from diners, all the while delivering meals to tables, pouring coffee and chatting with almost everyone who walks through the door.

Regular customers, war veterans, mothers with their children, University of Maine at Farmington students and professors, and people passing through will be there, too, sitting quietly or laughing loudly, ordering anything from pork chops to plain black coffee.

But they’re worried – everyone from the cook, to the waitresses, to the regulars who mark their days with visits to the restaurant. Rumors are swirling within the staff and clientele.

In its more than 50-year run as a Farmington landmark – or legend, as regular customer and phone-answerer Randy Marchetti calls it – the diner has come to mean simple comfort to a rather large cross-section of locals. It’s a place where retirees mix with college students, laborers befriend professors, and young mothers rub elbows with politicians.

They come for the food. It’s good, simple, and cheap. And the camaraderie.

“The only friends I’ve got, I made here,” John Najarian said Tuesday between bites. “It really is a landmark, and it’s going to be a damn shame to see the place go,” he said.

“We’re like a family in here,” Marchetti said. “This is my nest right here,” he joked. “I really don’t want to see it (closed down).”

Whether or not the rumors will amount to anything is a bit of a mystery to everyone who will talk. Owner Rusty Wood of Florida could not be located to comment on the issue Tuesday. His brother, Bryan Wood, who oversees the business, declined comment. Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser said Tuesday that purchase and sale agreements have been consummated with the owners of that property and others on the strip across from Hippach field. Also on the strip are a now-vacant Quizno’s and a C.N. Brown Co. gas station. The town hasn’t received any applications yet, Kaiser said.

Town Manager Richard Davis said Tuesday that surveyors were surveying the area around the diner last week. He also said he had been told that an option had been placed on the property.

One of the rumors circulating is that Rite-Aid has plans to move from its Route 4 location closer to town. Rite-Aid spokeswoman Ashley Flower confirmed the store is planning a move, but said it’s too early yet to be sure where.

“We are looking in the area,” she said. “We’re going through a major store development initiative nationwide.” Based on meetings with customer focus groups, redesigned stores may offer wider aisles, easier store navigation, expanded departments, drive-through services, and a room where people can meet with pharmacists to discuss their prescriptions in private, Flower said.

Regardless of who moves in if the diner closes, many of its patrons and staff will have to find new jobs, or new habits, if it happens.

Armijo has worked as a short-order cook at the diner for the past 26 years. Originally from New Mexico, and later from Las Vegas, he worked in Carrabassett Valley for a time before offering his services – short term – as a cook.

“I told him (the diner’s previous owner, Mike Grimanis) I needed a job to save money to go back West,” Armijo said. A few months turned into years, he said.

“I took on roots here. I like it.” He married and bought a house. Now he worries about finding a new job at age 63. He hopes his 26 years as a cook are enough in the way of credentials, but wonders if other local restaurants are even in the market for a cook.

“I do gravies, marinara sauces, but my primary job is I’m the egg man,” he said. “Although I am capable of serving you a fried clam at 5 a.m.”