Pizza & Pipes 1962 Mug

Silent films date back to the 1830s, and better theaters accompanied them with live music and effects provided by pipe organs. When sound films came arrived in the 1920s, theaters removed the pipe organs in favor of new sound equipment. In the '60s, someone decided to put one of these organs into a Bay Area pizza restaurant, and it was a hit. Bill Breuer like the concept and opened his first restaurant, Pizza and Pipes, in Santa Clara, California in 1962, choosing the biggest pipe organ he could find. A decade later, he opened a second location in Seattle, eventually opening in Tacoma and Bellevue. Other restaurateurs opened their own, and in the '70s and ’80s, pipe organ music could be heard in more than 100 pizzerias across the country!