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Address: 3907 NE Broadway
Year built: 1933
Square footage: 12,868
Market value: $6.9 million
Owner: Ben Bross Trust
How long it’s been empty: 11 years
Why it’s empty: Because a Portland institution died
Just off Sandy Boulevard in Hollywood stood one of Portland’s most enduring restaurants: Poor Richard’s.
Harlow Rudolph “Hal” Hulburt, a poor farm boy from Washougal, Wash., who worked as a torpedoman in the Navy and a fisherman in Alaska, opened his place on June 17, 1959, at the then-bustling confluence of 39th, Sandy and Broadway, according to a paid obituary.
“PR’s,” as it was known, did well, but it really blew up in 1972 when Hulburt and business partner Stan Prouty started two-for-one dinners—one of many gimmicks they tried over the years to get diners in the door.
The twofer included steaks, which were PR’s forte. They came with a baked potato, salad, and two onion rings perched on top. People mobbed the place.
Hulburt had a clinical psychologist screen potential employees, according to a 2006 feature in The Oregonian. It appears to have worked. Some of them stayed for 40 years.
Hulburt bought out Prouty and kept Poor Richard’s going until 2006, when he sold the restaurant and retired. New owners ran it until 2011, when Brett Kucera, owner of the Tony Starlight Showroom, tried to rent the space. “It was so out of date it was comical,” Kucera says. The deal fell through, and PR’s closed for good in September of that year.
The owner of the building is Ben Bross Trust, which has an address in Charlotte, N.C. Property records show the trust bought the building, which also includes a Bank of America branch, for $2.03 million in 1987. The trust couldn’t be reached for comment. It’s up to date on its property taxes, according to county records.