Organ Grinder Restaurant
The Organ Grinder opened August 26, 1973, at 5015 Southeast 82nd Avenue between Foster and Holgate as a joint venture between the Forchuk brothers and Dennis Hedberg.[4] The central location in Portland was initially a significant factor to its success, owing to the ease of access from the city and its suburbs.[6] A confluence of factors caused the demise of the company, among them financial troubles unrelated to the restaurant suffered by Paul Forchuk in the late 1970s, the failure of the Denver location due to drug activity, and failure of Earthquake Ethel's (a Portland nightclub that was part of the Forchuk/Hedberg partnership), the decline of 82nd Avenue businesses as I-205 was opened in 1982, and the opening of a Chuck E. Cheese's in the mid-1980s a few blocks away.[1][6] Additions from several other organs were then acquired, including 32' Diaphones and a Vox Humana from the Portland's Liberty Theatre,[6][9] a 32' Contra Bourdon from Boston's Old North Church, tympani from the Brooklyn Fox, and parts of other organs originating from Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, and Maine.[6] Effects never associated with a Wurlitzer organ were also added, including a dive alarm originally from a submarine.[6] In order to keep the instrument in tune, refrigeration equipment weighing twenty tons was installed to effect a constant temperature within the chambers.Therefore frozen dough was purchased, and the pizza quality suffered considerably, giving the Organ Grinder a poor culinary reputation that remained long after the equipment problems were rectified.