The top photo is how I remember the Imperial. My Dad would take me there for breakfast because he said the "Ranchers Stay Here" (which was really saying, "Portions are good here")......and they were! Today it has been replaced with a young hip theme style Hotel. I would gather they serve a continental breakfast today. Oh how I would love to go back to the Imperial with the waitress saying "What will you have honey"?
Those portions are still served with your meal at the truck stops. I find myself at one way too often. Great widow maker menus still live on.
Posted by: Livermore | August 28, 2009 at 05:56 AM
Wasn't there a 'Trader Vic's' restaurant downstairs? I remember my grandmother always used to stay there whe she cam to visit.
Posted by: Justin Gombos | August 28, 2009 at 05:03 PM
Oh no sir, that is the Hotel Vintage Plaza and Hotel Lucia now, they wouldn't be caught dead serving a continental breakfast. But Pazzo is pretty good!
Posted by: MarkDaMan | August 28, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Justin, Trader Vic's was at the Benson. About where the steak house is now. I really miss that place. Anyone know where the closest one is?
Posted by: Livermore | August 28, 2009 at 10:14 PM
I remember in 1981 $28 for 2 rooms there. Breakfast pancakes you could roll yourself up in...
Memories....
Posted by: mike | August 28, 2009 at 11:22 PM
When I came to Portland from San Francisco to operate one of Bill Failing's failing radio stations, we put the studio in the lobby of the Imperial. The hotel was owned by the Gentner family. Cattle and sheep ranchers from Eastern Oregon often came in and made that their "big city" headquarters while in Portland. We called the station, Kool Jazz, KKUL. We didn't make much of a "splash". Ron Tonkin was one of our biggest fans but, unfortunately, not a big financial supporter. That was the trouble with jazz radio..loved by many, supported, financially, by very few. It was the same story when I was sales manager for KJAZ in San Francisco. --a HUGE following, very limited revenue.
Roger W. Morgan
Paradise 93.5 FM Radio
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Posted by: Roger W. Morgan | August 29, 2009 at 08:23 AM