What's happened to Shakeys???
L. B. Bryce
Dennis R. Henderson
Michigan, New York, Texas, California, Nebraska, Alaska and Arizona
featured sawdust on the floor, long wooden tables with benches and
old-time silent movies with live honky-tonk on the weekends... and no
forks were available... even if you asked. The last time I visited a
Shakey's was about two years ago and it wasn't the same Shakey's I
once loved (at least the one in Kent wasn't). They apparently decided
to "modernize" their image and did away with that great atmosphere.
Haven't been back since that highly disappointing visit...
--
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Dennis R. Henderson - Manchester, WA, USA
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L. B. Bryce
In a previous article, bf...@scn.org (L. B. Bryce) says:
>
>In a previous article, mar...@wolfenet.com (Mary Mc) says:
>
>>In article <4dlekg$s...@tofu.alt.net>, den...@sincom.com wrote:
>>
>>>Are they still in business?
>>
>>
>>The one is West Seattle put up a sign saying "closed for remodeling" and
>>several months later they were remodeled...into a Boston Market. The
>>Shakey's in Burien has had "closed for remodeling" on their sign for
>>months also--last I looked, still no signs of life there.
>>
>>I remember Shakey's with the sawdust on the floor, and old-time movies,
>>and long tables. For a long time it was the only pizza place in my
>>hometown. Not the best pizza I ever ate, but you always have a soft spot
>>in your heart for your first, I guess...
>>
>>--
>>Mary Mc
>>mar...@WOLFEnet.com
>>
>>You've heard of the Good Witch of the North and the Wicked Witch of the West? Well, I'm the Morally Ambiguous Witch of the Northwest!
>>
>
> Hmmmm....... It appears that maybe they have gone out of
>business. The last time I went was soemwhere in the mid-late 1980's. I
>was planning to go to the one near the Seattle Waterfront (near pier 70)
>to see if anything had changed recently, but it was "closed for
>remodeling". I remember the silent movies & cartoons.
>
>-- LB
>
>
I was at the downtown one yesterday (I didn't go in since it's
still closed, but I looked through the window). I noticed that the seats
& tables had been removed , but that's about it. I also saw a "property
available" sign lying on the floor.
-- LB
Donald Scheidt
>In a previous article, mar...@wolfenet.com (Mary Mc) says:
>>In article <4dlekg$s...@tofu.alt.net>, den...@sincom.com wrote:
>>
>>>Are they still in business?
>>
>>The one is West Seattle put up a sign saying "closed for remodeling" and
>>several months later they were remodeled...into a Boston Market. The
>>Shakey's in Burien has had "closed for remodeling" on their sign for
>>months also--last I looked, still no signs of life there.
>>
> Hmmmm....... It appears that maybe they have gone out of
>business. The last time I went was soemwhere in the mid-late 1980's. I
>was planning to go to the one near the Seattle Waterfront (near pier 70)
>to see if anything had changed recently, but it was "closed for
>remodeling". I remember the silent movies & cartoons.
The whole Shakey's chain was taken over by a Singaporean (yes! really!)
company a few years ago. The stores here, downtown by the waterfront,
up on Aurora Ave. N., in Renton and Burien, and elsewhere, served all-
you-can-eat buffets at lunch, a la carte in the evenings. I went to the
one down by the waterfront as recently as early 1995, but that all seems
to have gone by the wayside. The one on Aurora Ave. N. has been
converted into a Korean restaurant, and it's reasonably good - but, of
course, not pizza.
The silent movies and cartoons (not to mention the sawdust on the floor)
went away years ago, making Shakey's just another chain-pizza joint.
The Singaporean owners probably decided to consolidate their holdings,
and make some quick cash from the real-estate they had acquired.
--
Don Scheidt
dgs...@teleport.com
Author of the Northwest BrewPage
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~dgs1300/index.shtml
Gregory Scheiderer
In a previous article, bf...@scn.org (L. B. Bryce) says:
>
>In a previous article, mar...@wolfenet.com (Mary Mc) says:
>
>>In article <4dlekg$s...@tofu.alt.net>, den...@sincom.com wrote:
>>
>>>Are they still in business?
>>
>>
>>The one is West Seattle put up a sign saying "closed for remodeling" and
>>several months later they were remodeled...into a Boston Market. The
>>Shakey's in Burien has had "closed for remodeling" on their sign for
>>months also--last I looked, still no signs of life there.
>>
>>I remember Shakey's with the sawdust on the floor, and old-time movies,
>>and long tables. For a long time it was the only pizza place in my
>>hometown. Not the best pizza I ever ate, but you always have a soft spot
>>in your heart for your first, I guess...
>>
What's amazing is that they survived so long while relying solely on our
fond childhood memories, while making pizza that tasted like the sawdust
had been scooped up off the floor and put onto the pie. Eech.
> Hmmmm....... It appears that maybe they have gone out of
>business. The last time I went was soemwhere in the mid-late 1980's. I
>was planning to go to the one near the Seattle Waterfront (near pier 70)
>to see if anything had changed recently, but it was "closed for
>remodeling". I remember the silent movies & cartoons.
>
The West Seattle Shakey's closed for remodeling last summer; they
remodeled it into a Boston Market.
--
Sincerely, | "Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war
Greg Scheiderer | altogether and leave the whole field to private industry."
bb...@scn.org | --Milo Minderbinder
Tracy Jacobson
spring.
Dave Breneman
>Are they still in business? All of the Shakey's I used to visit in
>Michigan, New York, Texas, California, Nebraska, Alaska and Arizona
>featured sawdust on the floor, long wooden tables with benches and
>old-time silent movies with live honky-tonk on the weekends... and no
>forks were available... even if you asked. The last time I visited a
>Shakey's was about two years ago and it wasn't the same Shakey's I
>once loved (at least the one in Kent wasn't). They apparently decided
>to "modernize" their image and did away with that great atmosphere.
>Haven't been back since that highly disappointing visit...
Apparently you hadn't been in a Shakey's for about 15 years prior
to that, because the Shakey's atmosphere you describe went out
in the 70s. At some point they decided their image was too dated,
and they became just another commercial-type pizza place (albeit
with phoney Tiffany lamps). I guess that great merchandising
ploy explains why there are about 1/10 the number of Shakey's
places now as there were when I was a kid. As far as big pizza
chains went, Pizza Haven wasn't bad, either - I wonder what happened
to them? The pizza chains that dominate now (Pizza Hut, Little
Caesar's, Godfather's, Domino's, etc.) are as a rule only one
step above Totino's. Apparently quality of product isn't a big
consideration in what makes a pizza place successful. Pizza
places are generally the worst places to get pizza. :-)
--
David Breneman ################# Watch for Spud
The Spud Goodman Show ####### ####### coming soon on
d...@rosedale.seaslug.org ##### ##### Fox Cable to most
..uunet!camco!rosedale!dcb (_) - - - Ciao. mid-sized markets.
Dennis R. Henderson
wrote:
> One still survives on the East Hill in Kent. At least it was there last
>spring.
Yeah... that's the one I went to... vinyl and formica and forks that I
didn't ask for... too bad, too... I really liked the OLD Shakey's.
--
Dennis R. Henderson - Manchester, Wash, USA
Finger den...@sincom.com for PGP public key
0xED273989 0DAF3994CE871F6AF91F1BAB88B04575
Dennis R. Henderson
Breneman) wrote:
>Apparently you hadn't been in a Shakey's for about 15 years prior
>to that, because the Shakey's atmosphere you describe went out
>in the 70s.
Well... yeah... now that you mention it, that would be about right.
I perfected my recipe for home-made pizza sometime around '70 or '71
while stationed in Fairbanks, AK and haven't bought many pizza-house
pizzas since then. Jeez, you sure know how to make a guy feel OLD! <g>
Kimberly Wright
Wendi Dunlap
d...@rosedale.seaslug.org (Dave Breneman) wrote:
> Apparently you hadn't been in a Shakey's for about 15 years prior
> to that, because the Shakey's atmosphere you describe went out
> in the 70s. At some point they decided their image was too dated,
> and they became just another commercial-type pizza place (albeit
> with phoney Tiffany lamps). I guess that great merchandising
> ploy explains why there are about 1/10 the number of Shakey's
> places now as there were when I was a kid.
Changing a good thing has done many restaurants in, notably Farrell's --
the ice cream parlor/restaurant where every NW kid had birthday parties
back in the 60s and 70s. Farrell's was best when it was still a local
restaurant and had sundaes named after the Woodland Park Zoo and Mt.
Rainier; then they went national, and much of the local charm was lost.
During the 80s, they decided to try to appeal more to an adult crowd, so
they repainted all the red trimmings blue, took out the player piano music
and replaced it with muzak, and took down the wall of celebrity photos
(J.P. Patches and Lenny Wilkens -- remember? :) The place became much more
subdued and much less fun. Also, during those years the sundaes kept
getting smaller and smaller... the Golddigger butterscoth sundae used to
come in a "boat" bowl, but by the end they were in those tiny tulip
dishes.
So they went out of business. They'd pably still be there (at least the
original store at 130th and Aurora) if they'd just kept doing what they
did best.
I miss Farrell's. *sigh*
> As far as big pizza
> chains went, Pizza Haven wasn't bad, either - I wonder what happened
> to them?
Pizza Haven was local, too -- the first local chain to deliver pizza if I
recall correctly, starting back in the '50s. (Not that I was there at the
time.) I'm not sure exactly what drove them under (with the exception of
at least two stores I know of that still exist, but neither deliver), but
I have a few ideas.
I was hired at Pizza Haven as a delivery driver in around 1986. On the
first day I was told about their wonderful order-taking system, which
supposedly consisted of a person sitting in front of the phone, taking
orders and passing them on to the kitchen. All very well and good, but at
that store, there was no order taker. There was an answering machine that
said "Thank you for calling Pizza Haven. Please hold for the next
available operator to take your order." But there was no operator. Every
fifteen minutes or so, someone would notice the red light blinking and go
in and take an order, but in between those, people would call, wait for
several minutes, then hang up. Over and over. I was appalled, and quit the
job immediately, figuring that I didn't want to work there if the place
was so poorly managed and short-sighted. I spent the next few years
predicting they'd go under, and sure enough, they did.
I don't think that moving their all you can eat special to 7 days a week
did much for their profit margin, either.
It was a shame, because I liked the pizza there.
+-- Wendi Dunlap -------------------------------------------+
| Seattle, WA, USA * "Merito" * http://www.slumberland.com/ |
| Slumberland BBS: 206.547.2629 * litl...@slumberland.com |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Alan Burgstahler
> One still survives on the East Hill in Kent. At least it was there last
>spring.
If you're talking about the one on 256th Street just West of 104th Avenue,
it's been closed for a while now; looks like it's permanent.
Alan - WA6AWD - Kent, WA, USA wa6...@wolfenet.com
Joann Pheasant
and there are about a million other places in Seattle & surrounding area
that serve better pizza. (Like say um even Pizza Hut, let alone a decent
pizza place.) Can we please bury the Shakeys pizza?
Please?
Kelly Lin
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