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Elmers exit ends era on 82nd Avenue TIM CURRAN THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
In the early 50s, Sullivans Gulch was widened at Northeast Halsey near 80th Avenue to accommodate the construction of I-84; the Banfield Freeway made Halsey noncontiguous, until they built an overpass years later. Sam Danna, who also operated a grocery store on the site, lost the northern piece of his property. Because the land under the store was excavated for the below-grade freeway, his store and underlying property were condemned. So, the store was torn down and Sam, who had always intended to rebuild his store, never did so. Instead, Walt Elmer contacted him about building a restaurant on the site and the rest, as they say, is history. At one time a publicly traded stock on NASDAQ, the Elmers corporation is now a privately held corporation with 27 locations in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California and annual gross sales of approximately $50 million. After almost 50 years, the original Elmers Restaurant location on Northeast 82nd Avenue at Halsey Street closed last month. Rong Mei bought the land and the building from Sams sons, Jerry and Joe Danna. Meis purchase included the buildings fixtures, furniture, dishes, pots, pans and cutlery. Mei owns the Republic Café in Northwest Portland and the New Cathay Restaurant in Clackamas, which specialize in Cantonese and Szechwan cuisine. He plans to open another in the former Elmers building. Aiming to start his own restaurant someday, Joe Danna who had already been working with the Elmer family at the 82nd Avenue location was pleased to take over the original Elmers. At the time, the Elmer family wanted to migrate into franchising new Elmers locations instead of running them. This turned into a fortuitous situation for both parties, as this is when Jerry Danna joined his brother in the partnership. This relationship has resulted in, among other ventures, the ownership of four other Elmers franchised restaurants throughout the Portland metro area. The Danna brothers, who owned this original location, were sad about the sale but pragmatic. The neighborhood passed us by, Jerry said. And it was time. It was my and Joes time in our personal estate planning. None of our kids are going to be involved in the business. This was a way to take some of our chips off the table and consolidate our efforts in Mid-county at our Parkrose and Mall 205 locations, he said. Its a step towards retirement. We had an opportunity to liquidate that piece of the equation, and we took it. Our franchise agreement had come to an end; obviously we could have renewed it if wed liked to, but it was just time. All the stars aligned to exit that location, and we wish Mr. Mei the best. Jerry knows that for some of their 82nd Avenue customers, itll be out of their traffic patterns to visit their other Elmers locations further east. He does hope that enough customers will transfer to their other locations to make it a good consolidation for them. In fact, Jerry has already begun seeing customers gravitating to their other locations. Additionally, the 14 employees that transferred to their other locations have also seen their old customers showing up, which thrills them. |
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