5/8/2010 - Mike Rieker's Pizza and Pipes Dinner Ride (Ellenton FL) 3:00PM

Title/Destination: Roaring 20's Ellenton, FL
Where: Leaves from Fletcher's Harley-Davidson
Time: 3:00 PM
Road Captain leading ride: Mike Rieker
Ride Leaders Phone Number 727-733-6559
Tolls or Admission fee: $1 for the bridge ($2 if your coming home)
Approx. Mileage: Approx 46.7. (Approx)
Ride Description:

Pizza and Pipes
Join our Head Road Captain as we travel back in time to the Roaring 20's at,,,where else but, "The Roaring 20's" in Ellenton.
We'll take that familiar and often mundane route, (but with a great view), over the Skyway and then some back roads to Ellenton and the Roaring 20's. Pizza is the main menu but they also have Pasta and things with that red sauce on 'em. The food is good but the main attraction is,
"The Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ"

The theatre organ of the Paramount Theatre in Oakland California was only beginning an increasingly exciting and long life story. Installed in 1931 at a price of $20,000 this Mighty Wurlitzer enjoyed only a brief period of glory before the theatre closed in 1932. By the late 1950's, the organ was sold and placed in storage. Around 1960 it was installed in its first restaurant venue, 'Ken Melody's Inn' in Los Altos, California, where it remained until purchased for the Paramount Music Palace in Indianapolis. At this point, it was greatly enlarged and rebuilt by the Crome Organ Company. Upon the Indianapolis restaurant's closure in 1995, it was purchased to be installed in a musical museum in Germany. When plans for this fell through, it was purchased for use in the Roaring 20s Pizza and Pipes.
Originally the organ was the last in the series of 17 identical instruments built for the large public movie houses in a style designated as "Public No.1." This style was of 4 manuals (keyboards) and 20 ranks (or sets) of pipes. A total redesign of the organ was made in 1978 increasing the number of ranks to 42. The Art Deco style console (of which Wurlitzer built only 10) had floral motifs on the sides and the "waterfall" cap pieces on the top. The coloration of the console was changed in 1978 from the original gold to ebony with the Art Deco designs being highlighted in Gold, Bronze, Copper and Silver Leaf. The organ is powered by a 20 horsepower Spencer Blower which supplies air for the 3,000 organ pipes and percussions. Most are located outside of the organ chambers. The volume of the organ is controlled by the "shutters" above the glass pipe windows, which allow the sound to project into the restaurant. The burgundy-colored tube-looking line around the restaurant are the wind lines that carry the wind from the blower to the various instruments.
If you enjoy the finer things in life, and don't we all, (don't we?), you'll want to hear this organ played just as it was in the heyday of silent movies.

Roaring 20's Pizza and Pipes, 6750 North US 301, Ellenton FL 34222 941-723-1733

This is a closed event for members and their guests.