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Portland, Oregon’s Fox affiliate, KPTV, has just aired a feature piece about the Kimball pipe organ at Cleveland high school, which is being removed due to a project to replace the school building. The new school, unfortunately, will not have room for the organ. Footage from the Organ Grinder documentary was provided to KPTV to…
In February of 1996, shortly before Organ Grinder Portland closed, fans turned out to visit the restaurant one last time. Fortunately, several brought their camcorders with them, and have provided their footage to the documentary project. In this video, patron Ted Welty recorded organist Don Feely’s rendition of “Powerhouse”, which you may recognize as the…
John Ledwon is a music educator, theatre organ enthusiast, and experienced performer. We caught up with John (no easy feat, as he often commutes between Henderson, NV and Los Angeles) in November during our Southwest Road Trip. The interview took place at Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, CA. (Special thanks to the board…
An Organ Grinder Documentary Project Special Feature As part of our return to the Midwest in September, 2025, one of our stops was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for a visit with Jeff Baas, owner of the Kenosha Theatre. Jeff and his brother purchased the derelict theatre in the 1980s, with plans to restore it and reopen…
(With the recent relaunch of The Muppet Show, the article title seemed appropriate. For those who don’t get the joke, here’s the reference.) In the late 1970s, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Superhero movies were making a big comeback. Blockbuster hits like 1977’s Star Wars (before it was called “A New Hope”) and Close Encounters of the…
Dave Moreno describes himself as an organ technician, organist, designer, and builder. Top photo: Dave working on the console of the Fair Oaks Community Clubhouse’s Wurlitzer-Morton organ in Fair Oaks, California. When you’re one of the few people around for miles that knows the ins-and-outs of a theatre pipe organ, your skills are sought after…
During our Southwest Road Trip, we passed through Palm Springs, stopping in to interview Rik DeRose. Rik shared some amazing stories from his musical career, ranging from a stint as a “pipe organ & pizza” performer, to Las Vegas glitz. Rik’s musical development and early interest in playing the organ started, like it often did…
Organ Stop Pizza is the largest and most well-known of the current Pipe Organ and Pizza restaurants. It was long-planned to be featured as the climax of the documentary’s chapter on the remaining operations, featuring topics such as the owners’ views on operating a sustainable business in this format, the rigors of being a performer…
While visiting the Phoenix area during our Southwest Road Trip in November, we interviewed Martin Meier, who has a fascinating story about how he came to acquire the Denver Organ Grinder instrument, and then sadly had to let it go. Martin and his partner Tim Stoddard owned a bed and breakfast, the Pikes Peak Paradise…
(Updated December 22nd with additional information, more photos, and clarifications/typo corrections.) During the 20th century, over 100 restaurants with theatre pipe organs were established, most of them pizza restaurants. But where was the very first pizza restaurant to have a pipe organ? How did this all get started? As part of our Southwest Road Trip,…
In the early years of the Organ Grinder, the restaurant was an undeniable success. This allowed two of the original founders, brothers Paul and Jerry Forchuk – already from an entrepreneurial family – to enjoy a lifestyle in keeping with a high-income earner in the 1970s & 80s. Fortunately for the staff at the Organ…
Last week, the documentary’s Southwest Road Trip commenced. The first stop on that journey was a somewhat solemn affair, despite being a visit to what is normally a location created to be beautiful and joyful: A pilgrimage of sorts to the Egyptian Theatre in Coos Bay, Oregon, where organist Paul Quarino performed on, maintained, and…
This is a big update about everything that has happened with the Organ Grinder documentary over the past 22 months, plus what’s coming next, and how people can help me complete principal photography. Correction: In the video I refer to Howard Vollum as the “founder of Tektronix”. There were in fact four original co-founders of…
The Organ Grinder Documentary Project has recently obtained blueprints and architectural drawings of the Organ Grinder restaurants from various sources. For the first time ever, you can directly compare the scale of the later, larger Denver location to the first one in Portland. The original architect was Will Martin of Martin-Soderstrom-Matteson Architects. (Now Soderstrom Architects.)…
As mentioned in our post about the Kenosha Theatre, the story of the Organ Grinder is also the story of the movie palace and the theatre pipe organ. We’ve previously been lucky to obtain and restore rare footage of the Oriental Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The Oriental’s Wurlitzer was the basis of the instrument in…
Jeff Baas is a man on a mission. A mission to save one particular movie palace, and a broader mission to preserve the history of all of them – and the legacy of one of their greatest proponents. You can’t tell the story of the Organ Grinder and all the other “pizza and pipe organ”…
Inside a warehouse in Franklin, Wisconsin, belonging to Carma Labs, Inc. (the makers of Carmex), is the world’s largest theatre pipe organ. As part of the Organ Grinder documentary project, and our return to the Midwest in September, we visited Carma Labs to see what weird and wonderful things people are doing with theatre pipe…
Last Wednesday, during our revisit to the Midwest, we spent the whole day with Fred Hermes, Jr. at the “Basement Bijou” – a private home in Racine, WI, which notably features a movie palace, complete with balcony, in the basement – it really is a sight to behold, and as you walk down the stars…
Now Available for Preorder! When we surveyed the members of our Facebook Group as to their preference for the next crowdfunding perk, T-Shirts were the top choice! Through a special arrangement with the beloved restaurant’s owners, and hours of work by a volunteer graphic artist who accurately reconstituted the Organ Grinder logo from source materials,…
(*Or, “Nerding Out about Credits” Part II) It takes a lot of people to make a movie – including a documentary. This film may be very lean on the crew side (often it’s just me doing the shoots), but it’s especially heavy on the participant side, whether its the long list of interviewees, or people…
