The Dockside Saloon & Restaurant in Northwest Portland became internationally famous nearly 30 years ago when evidence of a bizarre crime landed in its dumpster.
But it didn’t need the notoriety. The low-key establishment serving simple, straightforward food had already earned an eclectic mix of dedicated regulars, ranging from late-shift police officers to early-rising real-estate developers.
Now, nearly 40 years after Terry and Kathy Peterson risked everything they had to start the place, they’ve turned over the keys to a new owner.
When they decided to retire, they reached out to a customer who long ago said he’d buy the place if they ever wanted to sell. It was a quick deal, and a few weeks ago the couple started telling customers their last official day would be on Sunday, February 19.
“I’ve cried more the last week than I have in years,” said Kathy Peterson, who arrived at 7 a.m. for her final shift.
Since the couple announced the sale, customers have offered hugs and tears, cards and flowers. Even though the new owner plans no significant changes, customers know it’s the end of an era.
“I’ve never seen so many grown men tear up,” said Kathy Peterson. “It’s been so humbling.”
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Kathy and Terry Peterson
The story of the Dockside, at 2047 N.W. Front Ave., mirrors the evolution of a section of the city once dismissed as the industrial district.
The building, which dates to 1925, began as a place for longshoremen, truckers and laborers who worked in the area to get a beer and something inexpensive to eat. Home to two different saloons over the years, it was vacant when the Petersons bought the building and started an establishment serving breakfast and lunch.
In time, the surrounding neighborhood transformed, with new apartments and condos replacing long-neglected warehouses. There are now more fancy bikes and cars than work trucks in the area. The only thing that remains the same along that stretch of Front Avenue is this historical artifact, the Dockside.
The place became famous in 1994 when items found in a Dockside dumpster were linked to the shocking attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Her rival was Tonya Harding, an athletic Portlander who learned to skate at Lloyd Center. At the U.S. Nationals, held that year in Detroit, a man clubbed Kerrigan’s knee.
Three weeks later, on Super Bowl Sunday, Kathy Peterson took garbage to the dumpster. She lifted the lid and noticed unfamiliar bags of trash in there. Irritated, she hauled out the bags, looking for clues to whoever was using her garbage service for free. She found the name Jeff Gillolly – Harding’s husband at the time – on an envelope. Harding’s name was on a check stub, and there was a piece of paper detailing Kerrigan’s skating-practice schedule.
The mysterious “whacking of Kerrigan,” as she put it, was already big news, so she knew she’d found something potentially significant. (Sure enough, investigators would later determine that Gillolly had hired friends to carry out the attack.)
After finding the trash, Peterson called the FBI, left a message about what she’d found and went to a Super Bowl party. A friend at the party heard her story and asked if he could tell his brother, who worked at a Portland television station.
“The crew showed up at the Dockside the next morning and interviewed me,” Peterson said. “It hit the air, and my phone rang off the hook. I gave 63 interviews to newspapers, magazines and TV shows from around the country. The FBI showed up, got the stuff, and I had to appear in front of the grand jury.”
That put the Dockside on the map, with gawkers and tourists coming to see the place, ordering a meal, and asking Peterson to, once again, tell her story.
But the saloon stayed true to its roots.
The Petersons didn’t start taking reservations, jack up prices or create a new menu.
The Dockside remained the Dockside.
And that’s why customers came by Sunday to wish the founders well.
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Back in the day, Terry Peterson made a living as a beer-truck driver, unloading full kegs along his route.
He came home one day with a proposal that he recognized was kind of foolish. But he and Kathy talked it over and decided to try it. They bought the vacant building on Front Avenue and in 1986 opened a saloon and restaurant, calling it the Dockside because it was near the docks.
“We had two little kids,” said Kathy Peterson. “But we plunged right in. We maxed out our credit cards to buy equipment and get it up and running. We did what had to be done, like learning how to plumb a toilet.”
Barbara LeFebvre, who’d cooked at a few other places nearby, heard about the Dockside and told the Petersons she wanted to work there.
She stayed more than 20 years. She taught Terry Peterson how to create magic behind the grill. He created Terry’s Famous Scramble – eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms and melted Tillamook cheddar cheese – along with a corned beef hash, another of his signature dishes.
He later passed those lessons on to his son, who became a Dockside cook, while his daughter worked as a waitress. Their friend, Karen Wente, came to work there as a waitress as well and stayed for 30 years.
The Petersons built the business through hard work and word of mouth. Customers have held weddings and funerals at the Dockside, and the place may have one of the most diverse groups of customers of any restaurant in the metropolitan area.
Kathy Peterson, who estimates she walked about 5 miles per shift, marveled at the range of people who found their way to the Dockside, all of them regulars: a bank president, a car dealer, men who owned commercial and residential properties throughout the city; uniformed cops, bikers in leathers, young people nursing hangovers and seniors who enjoyed the bottomless cup of coffee.
Casper Schmand, left, and Bill Jones, right, have been coming to the Dockside for 25 years.
For the past 25 years Casper Schmand and Bill Jones have been coming to the Dockside – always sitting at Table 7.
They were there Sunday.
“This is family,” said Schmand. “Of course, we had to be here.”
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The pandemic changed everything.
“We are lucky we owned the building,” said Terry Peterson. “But breakfast is not a to-go meal and we had to close. When we reopened. Karen and another long-time employee had retired, and it was hard to hire reliable people.”
The Peterson family – father and son, mother and daughter – managed to keep the place going, but it became a grind. Terry Peterson is 71, and his wife is about to turn 67. They talked it over and decided it was time to retire and spend more time with their two grandchildren and just relax and travel.
They contacted Alex Bond, a Dockside customer since 2003, who’d long ago told the couple he’d be interested in buying the Dockside.
They made a deal.
Bond added the Dockside to his portfolio, which includes Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant and Bar in Northeast Portland, Serratto Restaurant and Bar in Northwest Portland, Eastern Pearl Restaurant in Southwest Portland, the Lighthouse Restaurant & Bar in Linnton and St. Cupcakes in downtown Portland.
“I’ve been coming to the Dockside weekly for breakfast,” said Bond. “This is a very successful place. I don’t want to screw it up. My motto is, ‘Do no harm.’”
On their last day in the Dockside, the Petersons took stock of their journey.
“History and memories are great,” said Terry Peterson. “Now it’s time to look to our future. We created something here that will continue. For that, I feel blessed.”
His wife, shuttling between tables as she’d done almost every day for 37 years, paused.
“It’s not about us,” said Kathy Peterson. “It’s about the Dockside.”
And then she was off.
— Tom Hallman Jr
503-221-8224; thallman@oregonian.com; @thallmanjr
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