RCD's post about the disposition of a trolley car from the Spaghetti Warehouse brought a related question to mind.

There are two Italian Restaurant chains that feature Trolley Cars are part of the decor. One is "Spaghetti Warehouse" (east coast and southwest mostly) and the other is "Old Spaghetti Factory" (west coast).

It would appear they share a lot of common themes. As the name would imply, they specialize in Spaghetti. They are often located in old buildings, and at least some of them feature trolley cars.

Does anyone know the history behind this? Seems to be too much similarity to be purely by chance. Also, why did they chose to feature a trolley car? Was it simply a gimmick, or was the owner a railfan?

I also read this on Wikipedia:


Who? Anyone ever heard of him? Not quite as well known as Casey Jones...

Bob,

I answered the other thread before I read yours. Spaghetti Warehouse also had stores in California and Arizona which is part of why Factory sued as Bob was getting to close and confusion between the two chains occurred because of the similarities.

As to why the streetcars, I can only hazard a guess. At least Bob saw the Factory and decided it was a good attraction to Bob's decor of old beds and other like table settings. In fact, I had a lady guest from PA in Dallas and her boy friend suggested that I take her to dinner at the Warehouse in a bed/table arrangement. When I told her we were going to eat spaghetti in bed, she wasn't too pleased until she saw the set-up in the restaurant.

Bob had a buyer scouring the country for signs, barber chairs, you name it, and especially
old dime games that told fortunes. Bob was very generous with his collection and donated many items to the Preservation League annual auctions. He was a fun guy and a gentleman.

Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Louisville has a trolley. Have no idea if it is original to Louisville.

The Old Spaghetti Factory in Duarte (east of Pasadena) CA is in the original Duarte schoolhouse, which later became the administrative headquarters for the school district (I think the building was declared unsafe for students but OK for admin personnel.) When the district moved into a new building, the Old Spaghetti Factory chain took over. There is a "streetcar" in the dining area, and it's lettered for Pacific Electric but it was not a PE car and it isn't even a real streetcar body.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Spaghetti_Factory

The Vancouver, B.C. location has an original BCER streetcar in its location. The other location has a replica.
The attachment shows BCER 53 entering the OSF location.

There are a number of spaghetti restaurants (mostly OSF, some SW) that I know of that have "real" streetcars in them, some of which I've identified and some of which I haven't. I'd be curious to see a complete list of original car bodies that were used.

OSF Denver - Denver Tramways 54
OSF Newport Beach CA - Portland Ry Light & Power 611
OSF Portland OR - Portland Ry Light & Power 801
OSF Sacramento - Portland Traction 809 (car shortened lengthwise)
OSF Seattle - Puget Sound 360
OSF St Louis - Grand Forks St Ry 123
OSF Vancouver - British Columbia Electric Railway 53
SW Columbus OH - unidentified Dallas car
SW Oklahoma City - unidentified Dallas car
SW Philadelphia - unidentified Dallas car
SW Pittsburgh - unidentified Dallas car
SW Syracuse - unidentified Dallas car

The ID'd cars are listed on the PNAERC roster, where more photos and info can be found. As of the late 1970s there were also supposed to be a couple of spaghetti places in Glenwood, OR and Oceanside, CA with LARy Birneys in them but other than a quick mention in Interurbans Special #43 I've never found any other evidence of these cars. And finally there are a couple of cars in museums that were formerly in spaghetti restaurants, including the Birney in San Diego and a Northern Texas interurban car body preserved at NYMT in Rochester, NY.

Not sure what you mean by "The other location" as they have many locations.

Tacoma, WA also has a streetcar body in it. I think it's real, but it's been a long time since I've been there, and it possibly could be a replica. Edit - Just looked at a photo on their website, pretty sure it's real. It's lettered for "Tacoma Power & Co." but they're not exactly a museum, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that's not the real heritage.

The Tukwila, WA location is a departure from the standard OSF theme in pretty much every way. A new structure in a strip mall, with just a few antiques tossed about for decor. The "streetcar" is a wood structure, flush with the floor, and it's not even good enough to qualify as a replica, it's simply a bit of decor that looks roughly like a streetcar.

Bob, thanks for the note. I dug deeper into my notes and supposedly the car in Tacoma was originally Tacoma Street Railway 213, built by St. Louis in 1914, but has been significantly cut down in length - originally it was a double-truck car but it is much shorter now. Photo here.

Two additional OSF restaurants with real streetcars are the ones in San Jose and (improbably) Honolulu, each of which has a Birney in it. No idea where either Birney is from though.

And at least 2 Old Spaghetti Factory locations are inside former streetcar barns: Denver and Salt Lake City, which I recall also has an actual streetcar (I was there years ago and I don't have a picture).

I was researching on the Chicago Lake Shore and South Bend line which became the South Shore, one of the former cars was stored in the South Bend yard and used for a model railroad club. However my digs took me to a sister car of it, and heard rumors, some data it might have been moved/stored for possible use in a restaurant. I emailed someone asking about it but I didnt get a very clear answer, but I learned there were some restaurants out there placing streetcar bodies inside for the restaurant use.

Looking for the CLS&SB car data is on a dead end right now, I'll have to relook at the roster, I wonder if staring down on some historical aerial pics might clue something.

Used to be a place in Denver when I was a kid. Have not been there in maybe 15 years or so, think it was a Spaghetti Factory or sometime. I remember it specifically for the Trolley (or at least the mock up of one). Not sure if its still around or not.

That's the Old Spaghetti Factory in Denver, it was the first one on Frank's list.

Back in the mid 80's I had lunch there with a friend while returning from a ski trip in Aspen. Our waitress was a bit surpised to see me halfway under the car when she returned. "Is something wrong, sir?" (PC version of "What are you doing you idiot?!?") to which I replied "Just curious if it still had it's traction motors..." (No). As i expected that got a puzzled look and a mumbled "OK..."

Back in those pre 911 days, you could show up an hour ahead of departure time and easily make your flight, so we had lunch at the Denver OSF, flew to Seattle and then had dinner at the one in Tacoma just because it was a cool thing to do. :)

New Westminster (Greater Vancouver) location

The Old Spaghetti Factory in San Diego had a Birney car from Bellingham, WA, #337. It was removed in 2005, and taken to the San Diego Electric Railway Assoc, at the Santa Fe Depot in National City, where it is now on display. See SDERA.org