fire during this year's Art Fair left the Fleetwood Diner closed for several weeks. That's okay - August is the slowest month of the year anyway, when many other restaurants elect to take a break. But any shuttering of the always-open Fleetwood raises the specter of yet another closing in the long and bumpy life of this downtown hippie institution.

Opened in 1946 as the Dagwood and rechristened the Fleetwood in 1971, the little downtown diner has been the hang of prophets and bums, beatniks and hippies, and a host of Ann Arbor characters. (John Sinclair ate there, as does Shakey Jake.) So fans of the fond and funky food shanty were naturally anxious about its fate after the flames were extinguished. Happily, the zany Albanian owners not only reopened quickly but they also spiffed up the place to a degree not seen in years. A new chromium skin has replaced the fading yellow plastic, and a thread of neon (neon!) will soon encircle the roofline.

Co-owners George Fotiadis, a Greek-Zimbabwean, and Adi "Andy" Demiri, an Albanian-Macedonian, didn't do much to the interior, except to clean it up and bolt the rickety stools back down to the floor. But they did take advantage of the downtime to spruce up the menu, raising prices for the first time in years and adding some new items as well. A new waffle iron presses out hearty, eggy Belgians till 3 p.m., and you can now order chocolate milk - reminiscent of Drake's! - stirred to order from Hershey's syrup.

f course the fabled Hippie Hash continues to move well all day. What is it about grill flotsam that ignites passions from Mongolian Barbeque to the Cloverleaf? Short-order cooks originally used grated potatoes to clean the gunk off a caked griddle; doubtless some curious cook sampled the mass of accumulated flavors and found them irresistible. The Fleetwood's version ($3.75; $4.75 meaty) tosses onions, peppers, tomatoes, and broccoli in with the potato slaw, then agglomerates it with a mild molten feta. The result is part breakfast hash, part Philly lunch, with the grungy appeal of leftovers and the desperation of midnight munchies.

Breakfast fare merely seasons the griddle for hash, though the tempeh omelet ($5.55) is a nutty treat. For lunch, stick to the pita wraps ($3.95‚$4.75), a stable of staples from standard gyros (how long has that spit been rotating?) to the inspired Fleetwood Club, an oversized pita piled with BLT fixings and tender chicken breast pieces, with a "special sauce" of yogurt and sour cream. As near as I can tell, no one's ordered one of the menu's dinners - steaks, chops, and fried stuff ($5.25‚$6.25) - since the Bush administration.

Fleetwood Diner 300 South Ashley (734) 995-5502 Open 24 hours