20 years ago, Pizza & Pipes, a University Place fixture, burned down

On August 3, 1999, Pizza & Pipes, the region’s go-to destination for quality food accompanied by music from a Wurlitzer pipe organ for 24 years, was gutted by fire. Here is The News Tribune’s reporting at the time:

Fire destroys Pizza & Pipes restaurant in University Place

Blaze started in an oven, then smoldered in building’s attic

Published August 4, 1999:

By Stacey Burns

Flames engulfed and destroyed a popular University Place pizza restaurant after workers evacuated the business Tuesday night.

The fire ripped through Pizza & Pipes at 2014 Mildred St. W. about 9 p.m. after smoldering in the restaurant’s attic for nearly an hour, University Place fire investigators said. Flames and black smoke billowed from the roof and could be seen for blocks.

The smoke attracted a number of people to the area, many of whom had eaten at the restaurant over the years. The business, known for its gigantic pipe organ, opened more than 24 years ago.

“You hate to see it burn down,” James Kelley said. “It was a good family place to go.”

Kelley and dozens of others watched and took photographs as firefighters from University Place, Lakewood and Tacoma battled the blaze for more than an hour.

University Place fire spokesman Dave Dupille said no one was seriously injured.

The restaurant’s owner was taken to an area hospital for smoke inhalation. He tried to show firefighters a way to fight the blaze and ran into a patch of smoke, Dupille said.

Monte Pimlot of Tacoma had just finished eating pizza at his niece’s ninth birthday party when employees evacuated the restaurant about 8:10 p.m. More than 20 patrons were inside the restaurant at the time.

The family grabbed the presents and leftover pizza, then stood outside and watched the fire build. Pimlot said he was one of the last people out.

“She’ll remember this birthday real well,” he said of his niece.

The fire started in a pizza oven, but investigators did not know how or why, Dupille said. The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department sent an arson investigator to the scene, spokesman Ed Troyer said.

The blaze crawled up the oven’s vent and into the restaurant’s attic, Dupille said.

Patrons said they didn’t know the building was on fire until workers evacuated them. Many said employees tried to put the fire out before removing the customers.

“There was no smoke inside,” Anthony Jones said. “There was more smoke on the outside.”

Firefighters tried battling the fire from inside the restaurant and from the roof. The building had no sprinkler system.

“The fire just ran along the inside (attic area),” Dupille said. “That was a very difficult issue because the ceiling is very high.”

Just before 9 p.m., the roof collapsed as flames broke through the ceiling, and firefighters cleared out of the building and off the roof.

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Immediately following the blaze, there were plans to rebuild:

UPlace couple look to rebuild restaurant and Wurlitzer

Pizza & Pipes was destroyed by fire after nearly 24 years in business

Published August 5, 1999:

By Eric Collins

For the first time in almost 24 years, Dick and Margaret Daubert woke up Wednesday morning without a job.

As the couple stood outside the blackened, waterlogged remains of their popular University Place restaurant, Pizza & Pipes, they contemplated the destruction of a fire the night before that consumed their growing business.

Employees, longtime patrons and friends gathered throughout the morning in the business parking lot, doling out hugs and looking at the remains of the restaurant’s gigantic Wurlitzer pipe organ.

“I hoped and prayed I wouldn’t see my building burn,” said Dick Daubert, standing and hugging his wife, Margaret, while choking back tears near the organ’s bent and water-damaged pipes. “We were going to be here forever.”

The fire, which tore through the restaurant at 2014 Mildred St. W., Tuesday night destroyed the roof and much of the building’s contents, causing an estimated $1 million in damage, University Place fire spokesman Dave Dupille said. No one was injured by the blaze, whose cause is still under investigation.

The organ’s 1,100 pipes are salvageable, Dick Daubert said, but the air distribution system must be completely rebuilt. In addition, the fire destroyed all but the frame of the antique console where people sat to play the organ, he said.

Daubert said Wednesday he planned to rebuild the business and restore the organ, but he couldn’t estimate when he would reopen. It will depend on whether the structure will have to be leveled, he said.

“It doesn’t look so good right now, but this, too, will pass,” Daubert said.

People paid their respects to the building and the organ Wednesday.

Adeline Hook, 83, had been learning to play the restaurant’s organ for the past eight years. Hook, a member of the Puget Sound Theater Organ Society, was scheduled to play the instrument at one of the organization’s events in September.

She was heartbroken to learn that the organ was damaged because there are so few in working condition across the country, she said.

“Every time we lose one of those big organs, it hurts,” she said.

The Wurlitzer began its life at the Paramount Theater in Fort Wayne, Ind., on Aug. 5, 1930. The 16,000-pound organ had 17 sets of pipes that varied in height from an inch-high C to a 16-foot bass.

Daubert bought the organ in El Paso, Texas, for $22,500 in the 1970s. He planned and built the restaurant for two years before it opened Aug. 22, 1975.

Tom Linehan installed the electric wiring during the restaurant’s construction, and he showed up to the blackened building Wednesday after his granddaughter called him about the fire.

In 1975, Linehan gave Daubert the restaurant’s first dollar, which Daubert framed. Linehan told Daubert, “If he never spent it, he was never broke,” Linehan said Wednesday.

Daubert stored the dollar in the building’s attic, which Tuesday’s fire destroyed. Investigators said employees discovered the fire near an oven vent, and the blaze spread through the attic, which didn’t have a sprinkler system.

Daubert speculated Wednesday that not having the sprinklers made an enormous difference. “It would have saved our building,” he said.

Many employees, such as 17-year-old Mandy Fleischmann, returned to the restaurant Wednesday. Fleischmann, the restaurant’s first manager to be hired before she was 18 years old, was scheduled to work Wednesday.

She recalled visiting the restaurant throughout her life, from her third birthday party to soccer banquets to hanging out there with her Wilson High School friends.

She drove to the restaurant to see the fire Tuesday night.

“Just watching it was your worst nightmare,” she said.

But Margaret Daubert said at least she and her husband could put the fire in perspective.

“It’s just a building,” she said. “Nobody was hurt. That’s what we’re very grateful for.”

...

Those plans ultimately would not come to fruition:

Pizza & Pipes will pipe no more in University Place

Restaurant that featured 1930 theater organ won’t be rebuilt after Aug. 3 fire destroyed community landmark

Published December 23, 1999:

By Art Popham

The classic Wurlitzer pipe organ will play no more at Pizza & Pipes in University Place.

The restaurant building, equipment and 1930 theater organ were badly damaged in an Aug. 3 fire. Now, owners Dick and Margaret Daubert have decided not to rebuild their community landmark. For 24 years, its nightly organ entertainment created a festive atmosphere and attracted all ages.

It was no easy decision for the Dauberts, but practicality prevailed.

“The cost came in at $700,000 just to replace the building,” Margaret Daubert said. “That didn’t even include the organ and kitchen equipment.

“At this stage of our careers - age 64 - we don’t have the energy or the nerve we had when we were 39.”

The Dauberts will sell their one-acre property.

And the remains of the 69-year-old organ?

“The parts that are salvageable we’ve sold to friends in Portland,” she said. “The stop tabs and keys all melted. The wood pipes and windlines were all damaged by water, but the brass pipes are OK.

“They’ll use the brass pipes for a venue in Portland.”

...

But it will live on in memory:

Requiem in heartbroken community

Column published October 14, 1999:

By Art Popham

When fire erupted Aug. 3 at Pizza & Pipes in Tacoma, organist Sherrie Mael Gibelyou was performing the “Titanic” love theme, “My Heart Will Go On.” It’s the last song that ever will be heard from that 69-year-old theater organ.

What a perfect requiem.

Fires burn more than buildings or businesses. They leave emotional holes in hearts as well. A devastating blaze is especially hurtful when it affects an enterprise with human ties, community connection and unique appeal as strong as those of Pizza & Pipes.

Pending insurance settlement, owners Dick and Margaret Daubert are still unclear if they’ll rebuild. One loss is certain: That 1930 Wurlitzer that gave Pizza & Pipes its charm never will play again. Many feel its loss.

“It’s like a part of me has been taken,” said Gibelyou, who played that theater organ under her maiden name of Mael for 19 of Pizza & Pipes’ 24 years of operation. “It was a big part of me for a lot of years. I started there in 1976 when I was 19. I put myself through PLU playing there four nights a week. A good part of my courtship with my husband was there. My two kids have spent a lot of their early years there. My dad was a really big part of my music. He died in 1991, but sometimes I still thought I could see him sitting there listening to me.”

After 14 years at Pizza & Pipes, Gibelyou left in 1990, when her father was near death. Five years later, a call from the Dauberts brought her back.

“Dick called and said he was putting together a collage for Pizza & Pipes’ 20th anniversary, and I was in all the pictures,” Gibelyou said. “I hadn’t even played for five years. I’d been at home with our kids. But, when I sat down there at the organ, it was like I’d never left. As long as I didn’t think about it, my hands knew what to do. I’ve played Sunday matinees and fill-in the past five years.”

Actually, Gibelyou was not Pizza & Pipes’ longest-tenured organist. That honor belongs to Andy Crow of Olympia. He was there from beginning to end.

“I feel the loss because I was one of the originals and the principal organist there for 24 years,” Crow said. “I even helped a bit with the organ installation and kept it up after it was installed. I thought I’d be there three months. That was 24 years ago. Some of my students have become organists there. The thing I miss most is that it was a center for musicians who’d stop and play there on their way between Seattle and Portland.”

The emptiness extends beyond those who sat at the console.

“There’s a great number of people - including my kids and grandkids - feeling a huge loss,” Dick Daubert said. “It’s taken on almost mythological proportions. One little girl sent us $5 in change out of her piggy bank to restore the organ.”

Dan Small, director of public information at nearby Tacoma Community College and a University Place resident, feels the impact.

“When we moved here in 1978, the only things there were Safeway and Pizza & Pipes,” Small said. “Dick and Margaret have been very community-minded. They did fund-raisers for all sports teams, scouts and many, many groups. My dad’s a fan of organ music, so we’d go up there at lot. My kids loved that place when they were little. They had birthday parties there. Then my son had his first job there. He’d dress up as characters like Darth Vader. This was a big loss for our community.”

Gibelyou recalls that fateful last night.

“I almost forgot I was scheduled to play that night,” she said. “My mom reminded me. Then, she and my husband and kids all came up for dinner. They left a half-hour before the manager announced everyone needed to leave the building.

“I did what no performer does: I just stopped playing and got up and left. I thought we’d be coming right back in. It felt surreal. When I eventually came back in after the fire, I thought all my music would be gone. I stored all of it there. But even the folder of music I had at the organ with me survived.

“Lots of Disney music and movie themes were waterlogged and singed but readable. I consider it a gift from God that my music was OK - and that I was the last one to play that organ.”