A bit of old Portland dies late tonight.

The Veritable Quandary, after a 45-year run, will close. When the last customers leave, and the lights are snapped off and the doors locked, the VQ, as it was known, will join a growing list of places that made Portland what it once was. Henry Thiele's, The Carnival and Yaw's Top Notch quickly come to mind. If you've lived here long enough, you certainly see your ghosts when you cruise the streets.

The VQ obituary will note that death came because Multnomah County officials wanted the property for a new courthouse on the site. Owner Dennis King didn't want to sell but eventually they made a deal. The county takes ownership in two weeks, and King expects demolition to begin soon after.

The VQ could never happen today.

Flash back to 1971. King, a Portland State University graduate with a degree in history, decides to open a bar because he enjoyed working in one near the school. He manages to scrape together $11,000 and buys a small abandoned building on Southwest First Avenue, right at the eastbound entrance to the Hawthorne Bridge. With the help of a couple buddies, he builds out a bar and then a restaurant. He names it after a theme in a novel he'd read in college, one that described the predicament facing Guinevere, married to powerful and old King Arthur, but in love with the vital and young Lancelot.

He was 28. Now, he's 73, with four kids. That's not exactly true. He has one other child. Yes, you guessed right.

If you're an early morning commuter on First Avenue, you've seen King over the years, literally watched him grow up. He sprays down the sidewalk at 6:45 a.m. Every morning since he opened the place. As the days dwindled to a few, it would be easy to let things slide. Who cleans up the interior of the old car and gives it a good wash a week days before it's towed away to the wrecking yard for scrap?

King does.

A man of pride and substance, he wanted the VQ to die in the way that it lived.

"You think I want the place to look bad the last few days?" asked King, finding the very notion offensive.

He continued spraying the sidewalk.

"When I take care of the outside," he said, "it sends a signal that the inside is taken care of. That means no cigarette butts or debris. I've always made it look sharp."

Satisfied, King neatly rolled up the hose, tucked it into a storage room and then walked down a narrow hallway to his office. The building, which dates to 1890, has the feel of something found in New York City's Greenwich Village. Small and intimate, two of the qualities that made the VQ special. A new establishment, Q Restaurant, run by the VQ's present manager and chef, will open four blocks away.

But it won't be the same.

"Friday night's going to be a hard day," said King. "My kids will be here. They grew up in this place. My daughter and I were here for breakfast on Sunday. It was the last Sunday breakfast, and she began crying. This was never just a business. The place is woven into the fabric of my life."

The bar King worked at while in college had an eclectic clientele, a mix of students, professors and downtown residents. He wanted to re-create that in his establishment. King's father, a small time accountant and teetotaler, wasn't happy and predicted failure.

"The neighborhood here wasn't great," King said. "Many abandoned buildings. My father thought the only customers who'd come to the VQ would be ex-convicts. I was so scared the day we opened. What if no one came. I had one employee, an art student from Portland State. We were packed that night. I had no idea what happened, how the word spread. But it worked, and kept working."

Soon, the place was a favorite of students, executives, professors, cops, judges and lawyers. And before long, King's father was bragging that his son owned the VQ.

The establishment changed with the times, evolving as the city changed. In the beginning, the VQ served Blitz, a cheap beer brewed on the edge of what is now the Pearl District. That gave way to craft beers, single malt scotch and expensive wine to go with dinner.

King never slacked off. During the past 45 years, he said, he's only taken a few vacations. He goes away and gets restless.

"I have to go back," he said as he left his office and walked through the VQ, stopping to make coffee. "It's like a drug. I can't be without it. Who in life gets to do what they've loved for 45 years?"

He ended up outside, on the garden patio. He pondered a question: Will he miss running the VQ, or miss the pride of owning it?"

"I just don't know," he said. "I just don't know."

He looked at his building.

"Ah, now you're going to make me cry."

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr