Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers - in Portland, OR

[StoreLiker2006]

Does anyone in P-town remember the very first Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers? Its founder, Dave Thomas (1932-2002) named the chain after one of his daughters, and used her likeness to plug the chain. This year, now it is she that is acting as the spokesperson, which is very surprising since for many years it was her own father who served as the chain's spokesperson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2U4cR2c20s

Back to the history ...

Some of the earliest-known Wendy's units in Portland, OR are:
*4829 SE 82nd Ave. (opened 1977 / closed 2000s)
*8445 SE McLoughlin Blvd. (opened 1981 / closed early 1990s)
*232 NE 82nd Ave. (opened 1980 / newer roof but still original frontage)
*2880 SE Powell Blvd. (opened 1980 / retains original mansard roof)
*1405 N Lombard St. (opened 1980 / newer roof but still original window frontage)

Most of these stores have discard the old mansard roofs for the Victorian-style roofs when they became commonplace around 1983. Also, the original tower signage (with a similar logo to what is seen on the mansard roof of the 29th & Powell store) has long disappeared from the early stores.

These locations are presumed to all have opened sometime after 1982:
*17217 SE McLoughlin Blvd., Milwaukie, OR
*16220 SE 82nd Dr., Clackamas, OR (Greenhouse Square)
*11607 SE 82nd Ave., Clackamas, OR (Clackamas Town Center) (updated with red lettering on front after the 1990s)
*1335 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, OR


Survivor... Wendy's by mobycat, on Flickr
(This store appears to be a prototype for it has both the yellow roof and the newer-style window frontage aka a glass solarium.)

~Ben

[Brian Lutz]

It is entirely possible that the greenhouse on that one could be a later addition (note that the brick colors don't quite match,) but a Wendy's that still has the yellow roof is definitely unusual, as I don't know of any in the Seattle area that still have one. In the course of some of the old newspaper research I've done I found out that in Washington, the Wendy's in Redmond was the first one to open on the west side of the state (the first ones in the state were apparently over in Spokane) and it opened in May of 1977. It appears from a photo of the building taken a few months later that it was built without the greenhouse, which then got added later on (probably at the same time the yellow roof got replaced with the Victorian style.)

Speaking of older Wendy's, does anyone know of any that still use the old "newspaper" tables? There's a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ place in Downtown Seattle that has what I believe to be these former Wendy's tables in it, but I haven't seen any inside a Wendy's in years.

Some of the stuff I found on the one in Redmond (as well as a few old Wendy's newspaper ads) can be read here:
http://thesledgehammer.wordpress.com/20 ... nd-wendys/

And it's kind of hard to see because of a tree in the way, but here's the current Google Street view of the one in Redmond:
Link (Google Maps)

Note that in the couple of years since that was taken a big apartment complex has been built next door.

[StoreLiker2006]

It is entirely possible that the greenhouse on that one could be a later addition (note that the brick colors don't quite match,) but a Wendy's that still has the yellow roof is definitely unusual, as I don't know of any in the Seattle area that still have one. In the course of some of the old newspaper research I've done I found out that in Washington, the Wendy's in Redmond was the first one to open on the west side of the state (the first ones in the state were apparently over in Spokane) and it opened in May of 1977. It appears from a photo of the building taken a few months later that it was built without the greenhouse, which then got added later on (probably at the same time the yellow roof got replaced with the Victorian style.)

Speaking of older Wendy's, does anyone know of any that still use the old "newspaper" tables? There's a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ place in Downtown Seattle that has what I believe to be these former Wendy's tables in it, but I haven't seen any inside a Wendy's in years.

Some of the stuff I found on the one in Redmond (as well as a few old Wendy's newspaper ads) can be read here:
http://thesledgehammer.wordpress.com/20 ... nd-wendys/

And it's kind of hard to see because of a tree in the way, but here's the current Google Street view of the one in Redmond:
Link (Google Maps)

Note that in the couple of years since that was taken a big apartment complex has been built next door.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&gs_up ... d=0CAQQ_BI
(This is my local Wendy's restaurant since 1984 - I do not know if you can tell, but can you decipher whether or not this store once had the yellow roof?)

~Ben