The old Eastwood Diner — long lamented after its closing — has new life as Roadhouse 73.

Bobby Plowman, of Carthage, spent months revamping it into a NASCAR-themed food and entertainment spot, serving gourmet dogs and burgers. The walls are decorated with stock car hoods and trunk lids, and there is a stage.

Later this month — once all the required ABC permits are in place — country-western singer Tammie Davis will grab her guitar and step into the lights to launch regular shows as the first of Roadhouse 73’s weekend performers.

Her 2010 single “Tall, Dark and Lonesome” was climbing charts when Plowman first heard it and made a sponsoring deal with Davis for one of his other endeavors , a barbecue sauce business he started almost by accident. People first tasted Plowman’s homemade barbecue sauce at race tracks where he worked.

His sauce didn’t have a name. He was giving it away, and around the track, folks were lining up for what they just called “that sauce that Bobby’s makes.” One by one, crew members from other teams found time to stop by the Bobby Plowman trailer to relax and enjoy what he finally marketed as “Uncle Bob’s Sauce.”

“I just gave it away until one day a buddy of mine told me that I should start selling it,” Plowman said.

Plowman said it took him about a year to realize he truly had something good on his hands. As demand grew, Plowman took a friend’s advice and starting selling his sauce.

Even then, it was still nameless until one night at a friend’s house somebody called him “Uncle Bob” and the name was born. “Uncle Bob’s Grillin’ and Dippin’ Sauce” became the lead product of his new company, Uncle Bob’s Foods LLC.

When Plowman found the former Eastwood Diner was available and took it on, he started looking for a chef. After poring through some 70 applications in response to his online ad, he hired Anna Mosteller. Her availability was sheer luck.

Mosteller is married to a soldier in one of Fort Bragg’s special operations units — she won’t say which — and he’d been transferred.

She had to leave her hometown of Carmel, Calif., where she had been family chef to a world famous movie star — she won’t say who, though Bobby knows — and, at first, took a similar position in Pinehurst.

Plowman convinced her to join his team at Roadhouse 73.

Mosteller didn’t start out to be a cook. She meant to be a schoolteacher and studied elementary education. When the sale of her child care business gave her funds and time to travel Mosteller spent time roaming South and Central America — with much time in Costa Rica — and then Europe, with much time in Italy.

After Italy, she returned to Carmel determined to study cuisine seriously and completed her work at the California Culinary Academy, a Cordon Bleu school.

Along the way, she met and married her warrior husband. They have two children, 7-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.

“We have the best hamburgers anywhere,” Plowman said.

These burgers have colorful names such as Whole Dang Farm Burger (topped with shredded Buffalo chicken breast), Sunshine Burger (cheese and a fried egg), the Shroomalicious Burger (sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions).

Top of the big burger menu is the Roadhouse 73 Infamous Murder Burger. That monster is a double Roadhouse blend of ground chuck and short rib patties stuffed with blue cheese and topped with pulled port, sausage, bacon-fried jalapenos and slaw. On a knot roll. With fries.

Mosteller’s desserts include a peach cobbler and a coffee ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and sliced almonds.

Roadhouse 73 is just off U.S. 15-501 between Pinehurst and Carthage on N.C. 73.

It is open Tuesdays through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with separate breakfast, lunch and dinner menus.

Contact John Chappell at jfchappell@gmail.com.