Amid the strip malls and used car lots along SE 82nd, one big building, now home to Super King Buffet, looks out of place: glass walls stretching tens of feet tall, ceilings sharply sloping in different directions. Turns out these glass add-ons, designed by none other than Pioneer Square architect Willard K. Martin, were once home to a massive Wurlitzer pipe organ, which provided the live soundtrack for what some believe was once the world’s highest-volume pizzeria.
That restaurant was called Organ Grinder Pizza, and it holds fond memories for many Portlanders whose childhood years coincided with the business’s operation from 1973 to 1996. It was a prime location for kids’ birthday parties, with live organ performances of the Star Wars theme song, bubbles that would float down from the ceiling, a mechanical monkey, and even live monkeys (one with a particular penchant for cannabis) toward the beginning of the Organ Grinder’s tenure.
So why is a pizzeria that’s been closed for thirty years making news now? For three years, local filmmaker and organist Bob Richardson, who grew up going to the Organ Grinder, has been working on a full-length documentary about the restaurant called Pipe Dreams and Pizza Crusts. He expects to finish editing this summer and hopes to release the documentary as early as this fall—preferably premiering in a theater with a pipe organ.
“This is month 28 of production of what was supposed to be a weekend project,” says Richardson. But with each interview—he’s done 82 so far—new angles came to light…