The news broke 2 weeks ago that the Seattle location of the Old Spaghetti Factory would be closing shortly before Christmas, on December 23rd. The Seattle location was the second to open in the OSF restaurant chain, in 1970, after the original Portland location (which was eventually replaced with OSF's current flagship location and corporate headquarters along the Willamette River in Portland). This means that the Seattle location is currently the oldest restaurant in the chain. Anyone familiar with the OSF chain knows that many of the locations feature historic streetcars, and locations that lack an actual car instead have a mock-up/replica. The Seattle location is home to Puget Sound Traction, Light & Power #360.

PSTL&P Birney Safety Car #360 was built in 1917 by St. Louis Car Co., and was used by PSTL&P in and around the city of Bellingham, WA, including use on the interurban line to Mount Vernon. Today, the destination rollsigns of the #360 both are rolled to read "Happy Valley", a location near the northwestern shore/"corner" of Lake Whatcom, and south of Bellingham proper. The Mount Vernon interurban line ceased operation in 1930, but the Bellingham city lines remained in operation until 1938, when #360 and other cars in its class were retired, including fellow survivor #357.

After the Bellingham city lines were shut down, both #357 and #360 ended up being used as vacation cabins along the eastern shore of Lake Whatcom (I'm just guessing, but I wonder if the now-gone portion of the NP Bellingham branch was used to move the cars there). In circa 1970, when the new OSF company was looking for cars for its restaurants, these 2 cars were purchased and sent down to Oregon for refurbishing. The #360 went to the Seattle location, and #357 ended up at the San Diego location in 1972. In 2004, #357 was removed from the San Diego location and the following January, it was purchased at auction by a member of the San Diego Electric RY Association, Sam Judd, who then donated it to SDERA. (It is currently located at SDERA's property in National City, CA.)

Back to the #360 here in Seattle. On Saturday, I finally had the opportunity to speak to the manager of the Seattle location, and he said that after the restaurant closes, the #360 will be moved to the OSF's parts supply warehouse down in Oregon (along with all the furnishings and tables from the Seattle location), and that the #360 will then most likely end up in 1 of 3 new locations that OSF will be opening in the next 18 months: Wheatridge, CO (a suburb on the north side of Denver), a location in Central California (he didn't say exactly where), and the third location isn't really new, but a relocation of the OSF restaurant in Honolulu.

As for opening a new location here in Seattle, he said that the company is looking at 3 different properties in the city, but that there are no definitive plans/final decisions at this point (due to the opening of the 2 new locations and the Honolulu relocation).

Here are several links to local news articles from when the closing was announced:

The Seattle Times

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

KOMO 4 (ABC affiliate)

KING 5 (NBC affiliate)

Information on the #357 and #360 comes from:

The Hicks-Hakner database: http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html

The website of the San Diego Electric RY Association: http://www.sdera.org/birney_357.php

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Additions and corrections are welcome. Thanks in advance.

Here's a photo I took of the #360 back on February 15th, 2015:

Thanks for the information! I have had a very difficult time tracking down information of any kind on cars owned by Old Spaghetti Factory so this is quite helpful.

Well, that stinks. I used to love eating there and watching trains along the BNSF/UP/Amtrak main. But their parking was the worst, so I guess I'm not surprised...

This location is closing not due to lack of parking but because they have it. The building is on the historic register and can't be demolished but the 1/2 block of parking lot is a prime building site. OSF sold the whole block almost a year ago.

OSF has a location in Tacoma as well as one in Tukwila (Southcenter area near Seatac Airport).

The Tacoma one has a streetcar, and was just recently relocated to a new building downtown. The Tukwila one is relatively new, located in a strip mall in a new structure with a bit of decor shaped like a streetcar body, but at the same level as the rest of the floor, thus avoiding any ADA issues.

Given those two locations close to Seattle and the continuously rising costs of both property and doing business in Seattle, I sincerely doubt that a new location in the area is on their priority list.

As John T mentioned, parking didn't kill them, real estate values did, along with the general costs and hassles of doing business in Seattle. A modestly priced restaurant has a very difficult time on the waterfront area these days.

Folks,
We should not be surprised; restaurants come and go. How long has it been since anyone saw a Victoria Station restaurant?

These cars are not preserved; they are props to sell Italian food.

An exception might be the Texas Electric car body that went to the Museum of Transport in Rush,N.Y. At least it is back on a truck.

the car at the San Diego Streetcar Association is San Diego is still up in the air as far as I can tell.

Ted66

The Pittsburgh Spaghetti Warehouse location closed earlier this year and the furnishing (including a Pittsburgh PCC trolley) were auctioned off. My neighbor is curious where it went, but no one seems to have information on any winning bidder.

46 years is a long time for any restaurant. The Victoria Station here in Seattle became a Chinese restaurant and is now a parking lot. As far as I know all the cars were scrapped.

I don't think it's a PCC; if the photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellytichy/447916903/ is any indication, the car is most likely a Dallas 700-series car. This is a car I've been unable to identify by fleet number though.

folks,
In reference to my post above, I am pleased to note that the San Diego Streetcar Association has built a shed to cover their SD Railway #54 and I hope their Birney streetcar from the former Italian restaurant.

Ted Miles

I think Frank is right and I stand corrected on the car from the Pittsburgh location... I was under the impression that it was a local car and assumed it was another PCC car, like the one at the Heinz Museum a few blocks closer to downtown.

It does seem that this chain is downsizing and thus there may be other cars becoming available... if you have one in mind to acquire you might want to start planning now.

Nick

It is possible that I had the new location in the Denver metro area listed under the wrong suburb: it could actually be in Westminster, not Wheatridge.

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Have a Merry Tenth Day of Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's rare to hear of a "Spag" (as I call it) location closing since it sure appears that they have had a license to print money at them for years. In other words, they are always packed. So I suspect as has been discussed above that they decided they can make more money selling the Seattle property than they ever could making spaghetti there.

They moved the Tacoma one not long ago, I think it was a leased building and they ga e them a good offer to move out. The old place was a cool funky building, the new one is a new building, nothing special. They did relocated the streetcar for that one.

As for Seattle they're pricing that place out of existence. Sad to see them go, it was a neat old building and trackside as well. So you could eat in the trolley and watch paasing trains. But, as you say, real estate prices were too good to pass up.