I was the first permanent manager at the Serramonte Pizza & Pipes in Daly City, California; hired in 1974 by franchise owner Bill Breuer, who headhunted me away from Round Table Pizza (owned by Bill Larsen). Redwood City Pizza & Pipes is where I received my training. The building at my location was poorly constructed and was eventually torn down. I remember that many wonderful organists played there. Tom Hazelton was one of the best.

There are lots of issues surrounding the demise of pizza-organ places, but one of the big things that doesn't get mentioned often is the mechanical decline of the instruments themselves. By the 80s most of the organs were at least 50-60 years old, a long run for a pipe organ, especially one that was (let's face it) on the cheap side to begin with. Wind chests fail, original pneumatic relays fall apart, wind leaks and ciphers become distressingly common, and none of these are cheap repairs. At some point it's just not practical on a pizza restaurant's budget to repair, restore, and rebuild them any more. The instrument at Organ Stop in Mesa has been a labor of love for a long time, but it's also been rebuilt from the ground up with a new relay, console, wind chests, and so forth since it originally opened. The pipes and percussions may be vintage, but the mechanical support underneath them has been rebuilt and replaced a few times, not least of which was when they put up the purpose built building they're now in.

Being 13 and being able to play an instrument you love, getting FREE pizza AND tips? Man, that's a dream come true! I was bagging groceries for tips at 13, and was lucky to make $15 on a Saturday.

In the later 70s. We had the Market Street Music hall in Colonie NY Rt 155 …a Wurlitzer with every bell and whistle….

There was one in Fort Wayne, Indiana back in the 80s. I loved going there as a kid, but it didn't seem popular for some reason. (My mom said the food sucked, but as a kid I didnt care) it closed after a few years, and I later learned that the Wurlitzer was sold and moved to Oregon I think, and is still in use.

Still pretty sad-mad about the Mighty Wurlitzer at the Tacoma Pizza & Pipes getting destroyed in a fire.

I was a patron to Ye Olde Pizza Joynt and Captains Galleys way back in the late 1950's and 1960's. I am still involved with theater pipe organs and associated with Blackwood Theater Organ Society in Harrisville , Pennsylvania. We have charity concerts on our 3/20 Wurlitzer. Our Wurlitzer is one of three in the world to rise from a covered pit and the only one in the Uniter States. I miss the wonderful pizza and pipes places we had in the 1960's. Blackwood is a private residence.Thanks for this interesting film.

I miss this place. Loved it, with all the extra bells and whistle (literally!)

I played at several "pizza-organ" places over a 28 year career. Ye Olde Pizza Joynt, Pizza & Pipes, Capn's Galley, Bella Roma. I played a concert at the Fresno place you mention. "I saw it all." I witnessed a common thread as many of them failed. The food got TERRIBLE. You could have the finest musicians in the world, and a dazzling Wurlitzer, but if the food is bad, you're out of business. I saw this happen over and over. Often it was after the second or third owner of the places took over, clueless as to what makes those places work.

I can bet you are in California. I have been to Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa and I was born 15 miles away from the Wurlitzer plant on the banks of the Niagara River. I am now living 23 miles away from The Villages in Florida which is a very affluent and fast growing area of Florida. There are 229 Villages in The Villages and it occupies most of Sumter, Marion and Lake counties. I can tell you that if an organ/pizza establishment were built in The Villages at Sumter Landing it would be an instant hit. The Organ Stop Pizza Wurlitzer was formerly the one in Denver Colorado Convention Center. If you needed another Wurlitzer you could probably get the one in the Grenada Theater in Buffalo.

Thank you so much for sharing all this information! So fascinating and before my time

I remember this as a kid from 79-85 redwood city pizza and pipes

Thanks a lot for this very interesting video. Maybe it is also interesting, to compare the organ culture in different countries with eachother. In The Netherlands, there are still a few theatre organs, but there are a lot of church organs, some of them centuries old. And there are new church organs build too. They not only are used in the sunday services, but they are used as a concert instrument too. During the pandemic, organists play online concerts, and if you wish, you can make a donation online. It is such an interesting subject, you gonna study, maybe you cab write a book about it. I just subscribed, and am looking forward to the next video.

It is very sad to see something like this happening. Sometimes, kids these days often opt for songs that what many of us older people would call garbage or rubbish and some of today's songs even has lyrics that in some places can get you in trouble. Also the cost to maintain these beautiful organs is going through the roof. I am glad that there are also several historic organ groups out there that helps keep the memory of organ music alive.

Sad that they are gone. So many good things are gone. Yes, likely too few organists, is a big reason, and people and societal changes.

I loved the Ye Olde Pizza Joynt, I live only a few miles from there and I kept in touch with Jerry Nagano, was a big fan of him, his talents. He gave me a tour of the place and had a very intimate understanding, as you do, about how the organ worked. They were able to save a lot of the instruments, but the 1920's console as a loss. I saw some of the pics of the horrible damage... no way was that going back together. What surprised me was that some of the switching was pneumatic. I was also semi-in touch with Mary Ann Henningsen and the story there was that the insurance company was not going to come through in time... Much of the benches and such was stored in a warehouse on B street... there was a lot of bringing the building up to code and you may know that they had to have 2 air conditioning units, one for the building and a separate one for the organ. The building is still there today, I think it is a Columbian restaurant, maybe, I'm not sure... BTW: Another piece of trivia: They didn't own the building or the parking lot... it was leased by the people that owned Aggie's which was a hot dog and hamburger place that changed hands it quite frankly went down hill... Last time I ate there... was the last time I ate there. Anyway... Your mentioning that place got my comment and subscription... Gosh I really miss that place. Anyway, I hope to hear more about that place and your theory why they lost popularity. I think it was a younger crowd that liked arcades and video games, and the pipe organ wasn't "their thing" But you're right about the organist being an entertainer... they had a different guy in there and he wasn't much of an entertainer, he could play but he just lacked the chops to bring the people along for a musical ride. Cheers!

Ah, yes. There were over 150 such restaurants over the years. There were even pipe organ pizza CHAINS, four of them: Pizza & Pipes,= (California & Washington), The Organ Grinder (Portland, OR & Denver, CO), Organ Stop Pizza (AZ) and Organ Power Pizza (San Diego).

The first picture looks like it could be Patti Simon, hard to tell. She was a regular at the organ grinder here in Denver and I think still plays an occasional concert. She is among the most talented that I’ve ever heard play.

It seems to me that the reasons for the gradual disappearance of this trend was all of the above reasons mentioned and the cost of maintenance as someone recently mentioned here in eh comments section. The interest in this trend was declining, one major thing that led to the Organ Grinder pizza place in Portland, Oregon going out in 1996. And that one had a huge 4 manual console and more ranks than many others which could've meant more maintenance than a smaller one with a few less ranks with just 3 manuals like pretty much all the ones in Washington State. I'm a native Washingtonian. The last 3 were in Bellevue, Tacoma, and Vancouver (bedroom community to Portland, OR). The one in Tacoma was unfortunately taken out in 1999 by a grease fire that started on an oven duct where the excessive oil & grease built up over the years. But that place would've been gone by now anyway, for any or all the reasons talked about here anyway. The other 2 were somehow just run out of business by other big businesses who managed to buy their properties. The one in Vancouver was gone by the end of 1999 and the one in Bellevue, a few years before that. I think it would be kind of nice to see a few pizza or ice cream parlors with a theater organ again, and they just settle for a 3 manual or 2 manual console with still a few sets of pipes. BUT no sense wishing for that, as there will obviously never be enough interest in that again among the general public like in the '70s. I try to look for some pizza & pipes or ice-cream & pipes shindigs to go to for an afternoon or evening. I've had a root beer float while watching a silent film accompanied by a 2 manual & 9 rank theater organ once in 2013. Then I got to have a slice or of pizza while watching one accompanied one with 3 manuals & 9 ranks in October 2016. So at least I feel like I'm getting a next-best thing.

When I was a teenager, in 1984/1985, I accompanied a pipe organist at the Serramonte and Redwood City, California pizza and pipes. I played drums. He was also a teenager and his name was Tyrone Begin. He was incredibly talented. We played a mix of top 40 and traditional music. We played Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, simple minds, disco, etc in addition to the traditional material that one would expect on a pipe organ. We did this for about a year.

One of the things that happened was food quality went down hill at some of the venues.

At Houston's Memorial City Mall, we had a place called Pipe Organ Pizza (mid 70's). That place was magic. They had a few employees dressed in animal costumes wandering among the tables once in a while, and the sound of the organ was amazing. I was too young to consider it back then, but pipe organs are pretty expensive. How many pizzas did they have to move just to foot the bill on the organ, never mind the rent, and other expenses? Needless to say, it was fundamentally a bad business model, but for the short time it was there, it launched life lasting, great memories for me!

Why did Pizza and Pipes go under? Like you said, it was a novelty. The Organ was the only thing that kept me coming back... but only a couple times a year. Why not more... well to tell the truth... the Pizza was not that good, when you could go to somewhere like Me n Ed's or DiCicco's... and even Pizza Hut had better Pizza and it was cheaper. Just saying, this may be a big factor of the demise of these places?

Based on my own experiences, it was bad food and bad organists that led to the demise of pizza-organ restaurants.😢

Sally's Stage in Chicago ... had a Barton.

I've researched this question 2 and heard that a lot of them didn't have great food plus I figured that it fell out of fashion in the early to mid-90s, but my theory is that the pizza in pipes restaurants most of them, served food that tasted like pure garbage, what also may have been likely was the organist did not interact with the audience much , but what was even more less likely was that the restaurants went out of fashion in the mid-90s , but that's just a theory

As for my own venue in Long Beach, my partners and I could not make the business pay, so we were gone in less than 6 months. We had the Robert Morton organ that had been in the Hippodrome roller rink in Long Beach.

I played there once when the organist was not able to play and was invited to play 1980

*1st Street... 1st and Shields :)

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At most places pizza and food was garbage and a restaurant that can't serve decent food, regardless of the presence of an organ, will not survive.

Changing demographics.

Deedee Bedford took me and her son PJ here and we ate pizza and made requests - late 70s, early 80s - pizza was not good

Why is it a subject for another show when your headline reads "What Happened to the Pizza Organ Restaurants." It seems like click bait to me. Just another con.

Interesting. Too much time spent on your life changing experience!! . You spent a fraction of your video on 'why they went south! Community demographics is a part. Neighborhood hit rock bottom. Area was dangerous Food was bad and way too costly! 'What FLOATS kid's boats'? Kids no longer thrilled to the organ....OLE SKOOL. Organ was 'weird'...had no reall meaning to them. A cheap thrill. They did Hip-hop/ outrageous RAP!! FAMILY DINNER TIMES: Everyone did their own thing. LIFE OF KIDS: Kids pre-occupied with their 'buds'. Its not rocket science. Church ENTERTAINMENT>..well that is what the church 'band thing' is about:. And the organ does not FIT 'street band' folk 'want to be' rock star church bands. Ok....so no research needed. Its obvious and simple. Just don't beat around the bush. BTW: I played these parlors in the Bay Area!