OT The Bomber restaurant calls it quits after 73 years in Milwaukie

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SlyPokerDog

SlyPokerDog

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The Bomber, a former gas station and restaurant best known for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber that once loomed above its Milwaukie building, has closed for good, according to the business’ voicemail.

Nicknamed “Lacey Lady,” the airplane was one of the Portland area’s signature roadside attractions for nearly 70 years. The B-17 was removed from its longtime perch along Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard for restoration in 2014.

According to The Bomber lore, Art Lacey purchased the plane on a whim from an Oklahoma Air Force base after World War II, then flew it back to Oregon to act as a shelter for an independent gas station. The plane also brought customers in for burgers at the Lacey’s Bomber Restaurant. The gas station closed in 1991.


In 1996, Art and wife Birdine Lacey’s family began working to restore the plane, forming the nonprofit B-17 Alliance to raise funds for the effort, with the goal of getting the plane back into flying condition. Art Lacey died in 2000. Birdine followed in 2008.


According to a voice mail message, The Bomber hopes to continue its catering service in the future.

https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2...lls-it-quits-after-73-years-in-milwaukie.html
 
SlyPokerDog said:
HPKM3I6J2NCZDIHQIO5WNUJQRM.png


The Bomber, a former gas station and restaurant best known for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber that once loomed above its Milwaukie building, has closed for good, according to the business’ voicemail.

Nicknamed “Lacey Lady,” the airplane was one of the Portland area’s signature roadside attractions for nearly 70 years. The B-17 was removed from its longtime perch along Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard for restoration in 2014.

According to The Bomber lore, Art Lacey purchased the plane on a whim from an Oklahoma Air Force base after World War II, then flew it back to Oregon to act as a shelter for an independent gas station. The plane also brought customers in for burgers at the Lacey’s Bomber Restaurant. The gas station closed in 1991.


In 1996, Art and wife Birdine Lacey’s family began working to restore the plane, forming the nonprofit B-17 Alliance to raise funds for the effort, with the goal of getting the plane back into flying condition. Art Lacey died in 2000. Birdine followed in 2008.


According to a voice mail message, The Bomber hopes to continue its catering service in the future.

https://www.oregonlive.com/dining/2...lls-it-quits-after-73-years-in-milwaukie.html
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I once crawled through that aircraft, especially the cockpit, when I was a tot. I don't recall if we ate int eh restaurant or not but I do recally my father buying gas there. My dad flew in a B-17 during WWII.
 
Crap!!! We were gonna eat there after things lifted. never been there. But Wife and I have been wanting to since we saw it last year.

Bummer.
 
Orion Bailey said:
Its not nice to make fun of someones weight.

I've never found Lanny to be that fat anyhow.
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Compared with other fat people I'm only just a little over the average fat person's weight. Okay, I can win a game of teeter totter over just about anyone but does that make me fat.
Here's the amazing part, in 1998 I weighed a whopping 180 lbs. during my early 50s. Now, it's more like 1,800 lbs.
 
That sucks. They had good food. Place was an icon
 
The picture shows that Texaco employees once wore white uniforms. The Texas ruling class still likes to require formal clothes in various companies. For decades, Texaco ads showed gas station guys in white, long after their pump hosers around the country had stopped complying.

(The only raison d'etre of an old person is to record history that you won't find on the internet.)
 
Worked at the Bomber in HS and I had to wear white overalls. Art Lacey ran a tight ship. I remember going into the restaurant and seeing all the Portland wrestlers playing cards and shooting the s... Most of them stayed/loved at the motel that was there.
Had some great times up in that plane too!
 
Do any of you know who the former Miss America was that used to hang out at Tebo's? Met her once, no clue what her name was.
 
Hoopguru said:
Worked at the Bomber in HS and I had to wear white overalls. Art Lacey ran a tight ship. I remember going into the restaurant and seeing all the Portland wrestlers playing cards and shooting the s... Most of them stayed/loved at the motel that was there.
Had some great times up in that plane too!
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Were you a "Bad Boy"?
Before I was a teenager, my cousin, little brother and I started a club in our attic. We called it the Bad Boys' club.
 
Hoopguru said:
Lews Coney Island Burgers made Tebo's semm like fast food.
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There use to be a tiny joint in downtown Portland called The Original Coney Island. This must have been in the mid 50s.
Speaking of old time restaurants does anyone remember the cafeteria in Olds and King department store known as Manning's?
 
Lanny said:
Were you a "Bad Boy"?
Before I was a teenager, my cousin, little brother and I started a club in our attic. We called it the Bad Boys' club.
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Did you wear leather masks and keep your cousin in a dark closet with a red ball strapped in his mouth?
 
THE HCP said:
Did you wear leather masks and keep your cousin in a dark closet with a red ball strapped in his mouth?
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Tell me more about your past, it sounds way more interesting than mine. We stole candy bars and looked at black and white photography magazines printed on incredibly cheap paper that displayed wome who were naked from the waste up. That's what bad boys do.
 
Lanny said:
There use to be a tiny joint in downtown Portland called The Original Coney Island. This must have been in the mid 50s.
Speaking of old time restaurants does anyone remember the cafeteria in Olds and King department store known as Manning's?
Click to expand...
Sounds familiar where was it in Portland?
 
Lanny said:
There use to be a tiny joint in downtown Portland called The Original Coney Island. This must have been in the mid 50s.
Speaking of old time restaurants does anyone remember the cafeteria in Olds and King department store known as Manning's?
Click to expand...

It was around 11th and Washington and when Nicks opened on Hawthorne they changed the name to The Original Coney Island Sandwich Shop as when it first iopened it was just called The Coney Island Sandwich Shop. Closed up in 1969.
 
THE HCP said:
Is anybody ever going to fact check this guy^?
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The Bomber was an institution and I’m sorry I never got to tour it. My father in law was a aircraft mechanic assigned to work on B-17s and B-24s in the Pacific during the war. He also took the after mission damage assessment photos. When the bomber came to Oak Grove back in the day, he was able to take his parents, brother, my mother in law and my much older sister in law (then a child) on a tour so they could “share” in his experiences. His brother was in a wheel chair, so my father in law put him on his back and carried him through. Tours were a regular thing until parts started showing up missing, vandalism was occurring, etc, so they closed it up to the public. Bummer. Humans always ruin everything......
 
Lanny said:
Were you a "Bad Boy"?
Before I was a teenager, my cousin, little brother and I started a club in our attic. We called it the Bad Boys' club.
Click to expand...
When I was a freshman in HS, about 20 of us got together and formed “The Hard Guys Club”. We had “official” ID and everything. Does that count.....??
 
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