The Fullerton location was a turning point for Dussin. “I still own it today but it was great experience for me to be out on my own and see what it was like to start something up and have to own it and pay for it, and run it.” “I got to be part of the construction of the store and then open it up and I ran it for three years,” he says. He was able to convince his father to let him open up a store in Fullerton, California, and lead the project from the ground up. Let’s put it that way.”Īfter spending time in California in the late 1970s, Dussin returned home to work in the company’s offices to learn “more about the corporate side of things.” During this experience, Dussin still missed California. From when I was a teenager my dad would always be talking to me about, ‘well you’re going to be in the company and someday you’ll run the business,’ so he always planted the seed. He says, “There were certainly times where, especially in high school, I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the business. However, he wasn’t always sure he would stick around. He was able to see how everything from the kitchen to management operated in a restaurant. We made a trip up to Seattle because we had opened a Spaghetti Factory up there at spring break and that was probably the first time that I bussed tables and helped out a little bit.”ĭussin continued to work in the restaurant throughout high school and into college. “I think I was 14 when I first started bussing tables. “My dad was in the restaurant business when I was growing up, as was my grandfather before him here in Portland, so I kind of grew up going to my dad’s restaurants,” he says. He was about 13 years old when the original Old Spaghetti Factory opened.ĭussin says it was a natural move to begin working in the family business. Guss and Sally’s son, Chris, who is now chairman of the company, has been a part of the company since its inception. “We also wanted to create a unique dining experience that was warm and welcoming for guests of all ages, which led to our design, inside and out.” We trusted Guss’ instincts in the restaurant industry and believed in the simplicity of delicious, affordable three-course meals,” 90-year-young Sally Dussin, co-founder, The Old Spaghetti Factory, said in a statement. without losing sight of the values the Dussins created the company around. Since opening in 1969, the Old Spaghetti Factory has expanded across the U.S. The Old Spaghetti Factory is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2019.įor perspective, Sally and Guss Dussin opened the Portland, Oregon-based company and began serving up its famous spaghetti when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, gas was 35 cents per gallon, and The Beatles released their final album as a group. In the restaurant industry, where concepts often burn out in less than a year, making it to five years-or even a decade-is a monumental feat.
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