This may be just a place holder for a while. I'm on the hunt for Pipe Organ Pizza photos but haven't had any luck yet. I want to say it was at the southeast corner of Monroe & I-45.
I did find a pizza menu filed 12/19/77 here, out of New York, but under the same company name.
And the Houston company information here. They filed in 1981 and were in tax forfeiture in 2000.
This photo is from a Pipe Organ Pizza place in Washington, but it comes as close as I can get to what the wall once looked like inside of ours.
The only photo I own is a sad little scratched up part of a Polaroid from around 1982 when my parents and my friend Julie went to Pipe Organ for my birthday. You can see the pizzas and the pitcher of root beer, but sadly none of the actual restaurant.
The hunt continues.
And my list of things to search for on the trip next month grows more exciting!
I did find a pizza menu filed 12/19/77 here, out of New York, but under the same company name.
And the Houston company information here. They filed in 1981 and were in tax forfeiture in 2000.
This photo is from a Pipe Organ Pizza place in Washington, but it comes as close as I can get to what the wall once looked like inside of ours.
The only photo I own is a sad little scratched up part of a Polaroid from around 1982 when my parents and my friend Julie went to Pipe Organ for my birthday. You can see the pizzas and the pitcher of root beer, but sadly none of the actual restaurant.
The hunt continues.
And my list of things to search for on the trip next month grows more exciting!
Yes, I think it was at Monroe. Wasn't there an El Torito Mexican Restaurant right there too? Anyway- that photo of the other Pipe Organ Pizza location looks just like how I remember the one in Houston. Only went there a couple of times, but once my mother asked the organist to play "That Phantom of the Opera" song. He had no idea she was talking about Toccata and Fugue in d minor.
ReplyDeletei have a matchbook from here. i remember it clearly. i remember the long hallway to get into the place, with the universal horror pictures along the hallway wall. all of it.
ReplyDeleteYes it was under the freeway on Monroe from the Airport. I lived by there and ate there often. Wish I had thought to take a photo. Will search my matchbook collection and see if I have some.
ReplyDeleteWe lived in the Houston Pearland area till 85. I know I have pictures of this place as I was just a kid
ReplyDeleteOh! I remember! They sold rock candy on sticks, Betty Boop on the side and I always wanted to Run to the little game area until the pizza arrived. <3 Great memories
ReplyDeleteFunny, my name is Julie
ReplyDeleteI remember going there as a kid 79-80 it was in memorial city mall. Mickey mouse would run out.
ReplyDeleteMy brother and I built the Pipe Organ Pizza near Hobby airport in 79 I think, for a man named Gene Wood who was a former Dallas city fireman who invested in a vending co. and wound up owning it.
ReplyDeleteMy father and his partner built a Pipe Organ Pizza for Gene in Dallas, in the early 70s. It did so well that he wanted them to build one in Houston in the Memorial City Mall on the Katy frwy. My father didn't want to go to Houston so my brother and I went down and built it for him. Before we finished he asked us to stay and build another down near Hobby, so we did.
The man who built the organ, his name escapes me, called himself - an Organ Grinder - worked largely by himself and was still tinkering with the thing a month after the store opened. He was a character worth knowing.
I was looking to see if the Hobby place was still there and stumbled on this site
The place in Dallas is gone, the Memorial city Mall is gone and I see the Hobby store is gone.
Gene Wood is long gone too.
I remember when we built the Hobby store a Hurricane hit and dumped 24 inches of rain in less than a day.
I'll ask my brother if he has any pictures of the stores.
that would be wonderful! thank you!
DeleteGene Wood was my maternal grandfather, who passed in 1999. I have several items from when he owned those stores. Walter is correct, he got in early during the arcade video game boom. The menu you posted is not associated with the three Pipe Organ Pizza restaurants in Texas. Are you looking for any specific picture?
DeleteI would love to see any photograph of the front of the building as well as any interiors! My email is torimask (at) yahoo. com. Thank you!
DeleteI remember going to the Memorial City location a few times with my family. However, our Junior High & Senior High age group at First Baptist Church Spring Branch went quite often. We always enjoyed the pizza and the pipe organ. What fantastic memories.
DeleteMichael
I went to the Memorial City location often as a child. My mom had a menu from this location tucked into a calendar that she kept from the 80s - so I now have that paper menu which looks very similar to the one posted here. I was also lucky enough to know one of the people hired to demo this location when it closed and I was able to get one of the wooden policeman that used to be affixed to the wall. It still hangs in my house today.
DeleteWondering what ever happened to the pipe organ? Was in awe as a kid.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend has a picture of himself at Pipe Organ Pizza (1979). We wanted to submit it for the gallery. If you would like it please reply to my email.
ReplyDeleteI am very late in replying, so doubtful you will get this, but you can send me any photo for the blog to torimask (at) yahoo!
DeleteI remember going there in the 80s as a kid... good times..😆
ReplyDeleteMy mom still has the drawing done of me by the characteur artist that was always there. The organ was just the most spectacular thing I had ever seen. Could be felt in my insides. At about 6 or 7 years old it’s a big deal! (1977-78) Monroe location
ReplyDeleteI wish someone would recreate that place, I would still be going and taking my kids.
DeleteMy favorite thing was the little figure that would cycle across the room on the cable suspended over the tables and the bubbles that would float down!
ReplyDeleteWe moved from the UK to Houston between 1981-1984. I had my 5th birthday party at Pipe Organ Pizza, I have held on to the photo for nearly 40 years. I can email/post if admins would like?
ReplyDeleteI'm returning to the US in 2022/23 for a 12,000 mile, 4 month motorcycle tour. I'm going to try and find my old school and the site 'Astro World' was located.
However, bread is full of carbohydrates, and typically, pizza dough is built with simple carbohydrates, which are essential sugars. It is precisely these carbohydrates that can cause you problems in the first place. These are the types of carbohydrates that are essentially sugars, and those are the sugars that can affect the levels in your blood leading to diabetes. Knowing that is important so that you do not overindulge in the types of food that might drive your blood sugar levels up. It's also important to note that another key component of pizza is tomato sauce. Though it is not unhealthy, it is full of sugars. little caesars diabetic menu
ReplyDeleteIn 1984 during a visit to relatives in Houston and Texas City, my father and I visited the Pipe Organ Pizza on Monroe and Gulf Frwy, having remembered the one in Dallas when we lived there in the early 70's. The night we went was "open organ" night where guests would get a chance to play the organ. I was going to but chickened out which displeased my father very much! However I did get a signed record album by the organist Bill Van Ornam which I still have.
ReplyDeleteBill was invited to Houston by fellow organist Don Baker who also played at the other pizza parlors. The organ was a Wurlitzer 235 that was brought to Houston from a closed Oklahoma City restaurant. It was rebuilt and enlarged from 11 ranks to 19 ranks by the Jim Sandling Pipe Organ Co. Be nice to know what happened to it.
Jim Connors of Houston knows all the history of the local theater organs. If I'm not mistaken, the organ at Hobby went to the owner of the Chrysler dealership on 59 and installed in his home off Memorial Drive. There is a theater organ in the auditorium of Houston Community College campus on Holcombe (the old San Jacinto High School). It may be one of the organs from the Pipe Organ Pizza places.
ReplyDeleteMy mother has a bunch of photos from my birthday party there. If you’re still looking for some I can ask her about them?
ReplyDelete