Video by Grant Butler

By Grant Butler

Earlier this year, we took a stroll down memory lane, looking at 181 long-gone Portland restaurants that people still have fond memories of. There were so many unique places, that we broke them up into two batches of historic photos, with most of the picks in our second round coming from reader suggestions.

Most of these restaurants are fondly remembered for that delicious combination of great food and the nice people who worked there. Others stood out for a particular dish that achieved landmark status – simply put, you couldn’t go there and not order it. If you went to Winterborne, for instance, someone at your table had to get the amazing Crab Juniper – and then share bites with everyone in the party.

But some of these places had cool features that you just don’t see any more. These added attractions took going out for dinner to an entirely new level. Here’s a look at 13 unique aspects of Portland’s dining scene from years gone by, plus a few suggestions where you can still experience faint echoes of the original.

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The Oregonian file photos

The water show: Pasta with a side of glitz

In Hollywood movies of the 1940s and '50s, fancy restaurants and nightclubs were often shown with Copacabana-like floorshows, complete with elaborate costumes, showgirls, and maracas-playing bandleaders. Portlanders got a taste of that glitz and glamor at Southwest's Piluso's, an Italian restaurant at Southwest 30th Avenue and Barbur Boulevard, where meals were punctuated with a glamorous nightly water show featuring synchronized swimmers and fountains. True magic!

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Leonard Bacon, The Oregonian/OregonLive

A different kind of water show

The River Queen may not have had a nightly water show featuring swimmers, but it had its own amazing water feature – the Willamette River! This retired riverboat was moored on the Willamette Waterfront, and featured a restaurant that opened in 1962, and ran under several different owners until 1995. This was a prime destination for special occasion dining.

While there aren't restaurants today that let you dine on the river, you can take a dinner cruise on the Portland Spirit. There also are a number that feature spectacular river views, including Salty's on the Columbia, Three Degrees and Aquariva on the Willamette.

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Tom Treick, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Jazz joints: Where rhythm ruled the night

Portland has one of the best jazz scenes on the West Coast, and for much of the 1980s and '90s, restaurants showcased some of our best local and visiting musicians. One of the oldest was downtown's The Mural Room/Jazz Quarry, a place that featured jazz back in the 1950s and '60s (along with strippers at one point). Remo's in the Pearl District featured a cozy lounge where drummer Ron Steen held his weekly jazz jam. Old Town's Jazz de Opus featured standing gigs by local groups. And the eastside had The Hobbit, which was all about saxophones and drums, not Middle Earth.

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John Rudoff, for The Oregonian/OregonLive

We're still smarting from the last of these great jazz venues that shuttered. The Pearl District's Jimmy Mak's closed on New Year's Eve, and owner Jimmy Makrounis died from cancer the following day.

There still are a few restaurants that feature live jazz, notably Clyde's Prime Rib in Northeast, where Steen's jazz jams live on every Sunday night, but gone are the days when you could hear live music could be heard at so many places.

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Rose Howerter, The Oregonian

Singing servers: Meals with a side of melody

Live music used to be a common restaurant feature, particularly at supper clubs, where there might be a full band with live singers. That became all but extinct by the 1970s, though you could still be serenaded while eating fondue and schnitzel at Northeast Portland's Der Rheinlander. Chef and restaurateur Horst Mager opened the German-themed restaurant in 1963 in the Rose City neighborhood, and it became an instant hit with diners. Over the years, the food seemed less-remarkable as Portland's dining scene got better. But diners loved the costumed servers, who would sing selections from "The Sound of Music" and German folk songs. The music died when the restaurant served its last meals on New Year's Eve last December, ending an amazing 53-year run.

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Torsten Kjellstrand, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Burn, baby, burn: Food set on fire

Some Portland restaurants may not have had floorshows or live music, but they could still offer a spectacle, thanks to food set on fire. In the 1950s, many old-school restaurants like the London Grill featured flambé dishes, where tender steaks and Baked Alaska were set on fire at the tableside. For sheer fun, it was hard to top Old Town's Alexis Restaurant, where for 36 years diners were wowed by saganaki, an ouzo-drenched cheese that was served in flaming glory. The Greek restaurant closed late last year.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

You can still be dazzled by flames at a few Portland spots. At Huber's, waiters make order after order of the café's signature Spanish coffee, and at downtown's El Gaucho in the Benson Hotel, they still serve flaming swords of beef tenderloin, along with fiery desserts of Bananas Foster and Cherries Jubilee.

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Faith Cathcart, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The color of funny: Coloring before it was cool

When the Parisian-style French bistro Brasserie Montmartre opened downtown in 1978, it quickly became a popular for its in-house magician and live jazz. But diners loved it for its paper-covered tabletops, on which they were encouraged to color while waiting for their food. Imagine: Coloring in public and not being embarrassed about it! There was even an annual coloring contest, where the winning drawings would get framed and become part of the decor. It was a unique way for adults to unleash their inner-child, and a precursor to today's grown-up coloring book craze.

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Beth Nakamura, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Coloring on your tabletop wasn't the only unique feature about Brasserie Montmartre. In its heyday, magicians performed tableside tricks for diners. And the dining room featured live music on most nights.

The Brasserie closed and reopened several times before closing for good in 2015, ending a 37-year run. The space is now Park Avenue Fine Wine and Bardot.

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The Oregonian file photos

Birthday bonanzas: The ultimate ice cream sundae

When your birthday rolls around, you can find many restaurants where waiters will sing "Happy Birthday." Heck, if you play your cards right at some Mexican restaurants, you may even get to wear a giant sombrero while you're serenaded. But there's nothing quite as magical as the long-gone experience of a birthday party at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour. Co-founded in 1963 by Robert "Bob" Farrell, this chain of ice cream shops specialized in children's birthday parties, where "Happy Birthday" could reach sugar-induced new heights. The last Portland Farrell's, on Northeast Weidler Street, closed in 2001, but several Farrell's still operate in Southern California under different ownership. Farrell passed away in 2015 at age 87.

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Doug Beghtel, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The wine cellar that made your jaw drop

Thanks to our state’s wine industry, Portland is a great city for ordering pinot noir with dinner. But there are some restaurants where the wine list runs so deep, wine geeks totally freak out.

Southwest Portland's Plainfield's Mayur was just such a place. The upscale Indian restaurant featured an amazing wine list that was curated by Craig Plainfield (shown here in 2005), and specialized in port, sherry and Madeira, some dating back to 1795. Imagine, drinking something that was bottled when George Washington was president, and Oregon was a long way from becoming a state.

Plainfield's closed in 2013, but you don't have to go far to find the city's most-extensive wine list, which is just a few blocks away at the RingSide steakhouse, where the wine list runs a staggering 24 pages.

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Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Not your daily grind: The pizza place with the giant organ

When we asked readers which closed Portland restaurants they wished were still around, an astonishing number named the Southeast 82nd Avenue pizza place The Organ Grinder, which opened in 1973, and was much more than a pizza parlor. A massive Wurlitzer organ that was saved from the old Oriental Theater dominated the space, and was the driving force behind spirited sing-alongs. The organ's pipes are seen here in 1985 with Paul Quarino, who was one of four organists who played it. Because of the size of the organ, the Organ Grinder featured a unique vaulted ceiling. Organ Grinder closed in 1996, and the organ was dismantled. The space is now Super King Buffet.

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Elaine Schumake, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The perch: The perfect chef's counter

These days, lots of Portland restaurants feature the chef's counter experience, ranging from the upscale vegan restaurant Farm Spirit, to the quintessential Portland restaurant Le Pigeon. But one of the very best was the chef's counter at Wildwood during the landmark restaurant's early years. From one of these prized seats, you could watch as executive chef Cory Schreiber orchestrated every aspect of the menu, directing a group of chefs that would go on to become some of the city's very best, including Adam and Jackie Sappington, David Padberg, Jenn Louis, and Brad Root. The best seats were right next to the wood-fired oven, where you could watch as order after order of the restaurant's oven-roasted mussels with saffron and tomato was prepared. It was the restaurant's most-popular and enduring dish.

Wildwood closed in early 2014, and the space – and that perfect chef’s counter – have been vacant ever since. If you dined at the chef’s counter in the 1990s, you caught Portland’s now grown-up dining scene in its infancy.

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Brent Wojahn, The Oregonian/OregonLive

You and me and the waiter makes three

As restaurant gimmicks go, you've got to hand it to Nancy Briggs and Juanita Crampton, who opened Northwest Portland's Table for Two in 1987, getting instant national attention because it had just one table, and served only two diners at lunchtime. The venture was actually an off-shoot of their catering business, and for $75, diners got four courses of specially prepared Pacific Northwest fare, served with a minimum of fuss. Best of all: no annoyingly loud people at the next table, because you had the place all to yourself. The restaurant continued for more than a decade, and Briggs closed the catering business in 2003.

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Oregonian file photo

Meals on wheels: The ultimate drive-in

Drive-ins took off in the mid-century, when car culture captivated America, and the big daddy of Portland drive-ins was Yaw's Top Notch, which opened in 1926, and featured a cavernous dining room along with a drive-in that could accommodate more than 80 cars at a time (seen here in 1958). In the 1950s and 1960s, which American drive-in culture was at its peak, traffic would sometimes back up with cars waiting to get in. But drive-in restaurants (along with drive-in movie theaters) faded in the '70s, and the last Yaw's closed in 1982.

After being closed for almost 30 years, there was an attempt to reopen it in 2012 that lasted only eight months. Of course, there still are drive-ins, but going to Sonic will never be as cool as hitting Yaw's on a hot summer night.

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Alfred Monner, The Oregonian

The fashion show: Places where the clientele dressed up

When you go out to restaurants these days, it's not uncommon to see people wearing flip-flops and cut-offs. But there was a time when people got dressed up to go out to eat, particularly at long-gone lunch spots like the Georgian Room in downtown's Meier & Frank department store, or The Chocolate Lounge at Lipman, Wolfe & Co., also located downtown. In this 1951 photo, taken not long after Lipman's was remodeled, women wearing hats and gloves enjoy lunch in the mezzanine restaurant that overlooked the store's main sales floor.

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-- Grant Butler

gbutler@oregonian.com

503-221-8566; @grantbutler