Laurie Gulbransen made Dog House diners' pet eatery

In a Seattle that is no more, all roads led to a 24-hour kitschy diner at Seventh Avenue and Bell Street where crusty waitresses dispensed sass with black coffee and the menu featured rib-eye steak ("tenderness not guaranteed"), peppered ham and eggs ("rye toast 10 cents extra") and spaghetti smothered with chili.

It was a Seattle institution called the Dog House, and Laurie Gulbransen officiated over all of it.

Mrs. Gulbransen, a waitress when the restaurant opened in 1934 and the owner when it closed in January 1994, died Saturday of natural causes at a Queen Anne nursing home. She was 87.

"The whole place, in my mind, was her place," said Jim Prather, a Dog House customer almost every day for 33 years.

Mrs. Gulbransen learned the trade from her parents, who owned restaurants in Florida and in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood.

"The way restaurants were in the '20s and '30s was the way she thought they should be," said Merrily Boone, her daughter.

For a long time, Mrs. Gulbransen resisted microwave ovens in the Dog House kitchen, believing they zapped flavor and texture from food. Long after many diners moved toward pre-prepared ingredients, she still directed her kitchen staff to peel potatoes by hand and bake pies from scratch.

Bob Murray, the Dog House's original owner, wooed her away from another restaurant to help open his new place. She began managing the restaurant in the 1940s and became an owner in the 1970s after Murray's widow willed it to her.

"She was very proud of the role the Dog House played in the city, and it was one of the reasons she didn't want to change it," Boone said.

From the cocktail bar, where organists played requests of show tunes and television-show theme songs, to a mural over the lunch counter that depicted all of the roads that led to the restaurant, Mrs. Gulbransen preserved a piece of Seattle history that spanned generations.

Detective novelist J.A. Jance had her protagonist, J.P. "Beau" Beaumont, hang out at the Dog House. Everyone who was anyone in Seattle probably hung out there at one time or another, whether it was the Seafair Pirates or the ham-radio enthusiasts who met almost daily in a banquet room for 30 years.

Drug dealers and prostitutes ate in booths next to cops and prosecutors.

"It was a restaurant for ordinary people, and she wanted it that way," Boone said. "The term `greasy spoon' comes to mind. But she would object to that because she made sure that restaurant stayed really clean."

Mrs. Gulbransen took care of the restaurant's ordering and hiring and she did the books, but she also often greeted customers during the lunch rush.

"She was there every day," said Dick Dickerson, who played organ in the Dog House bar from 1980 to 1994. "She was on top of everything that happened in the restaurant. And she would always pitch in if something needed to be done."

She earned a reputation as being both tough and warm with employees and customers alike.

"I remember once coming to her after a customer complained about something that no one had ever complained about before," said Gwenn Wesselius, a waitress and bartender for 13 years. "She told me, `Tell him we'll take care of his check but also to go away and not ever come back.' "

She set up strict guidelines for cashing checks at the Dog House - customers had to be on a list - but those approved were treated like family. Prather recalls hitting her up for money in desperation after the banks had closed and he needed to cash a check so he could go to Las Vegas.

"She would help me out," he said. "The Dog House was like my second bank."

Boone said her mother always tried to be outgoing and friendly with customers, "but if someone stepped out of line, she would be really firm. And the people who worked for Mom knew that things had to be done her way."

As kids, Boone and her brother David, who co-managed the restaurant, were instructed never to call their mother at work unless they were bleeding. And never, ever to call during the lunch rush.

For all of her steely ways, Mrs. Gulbransen also had a warm heart. She was a life patron of the Variety Club, a group of entertainers involved in charitable ventures. She fed workers who built sets at the KIRO-TV studios for the annual Variety Club telethon, which raised money for Children's Orthopedic Hospital, now Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center.

At the Dog House, she fastened paper hearts to a satin ribbon and hung the streamer around the bar, asking customers to staple money to the hearts as a donation to the Variety Club.

"One year, someone stole the ribbon and the $700 attached to it," recalls Marge Hansen, a substitute organist at the Dog House bar for 30 years. "Laurie wrote a check to Variety Club for $700 to make up for it."

Mrs. Gulbransen was preceded in death by her husband, John, and is survived by Boone, of Manchester, Kitsap County; son David of Tustin, Calif.; and three grandsons.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at Evergreen Washelli funeral home, 11111 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle. Memorials may be made to Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle.

Stuart Eskenazi's phone message number is 206-464-2293.