Born in Idaho in 1922, Joseph H. Rudd was an architect in Portland, Oregon who was active from the 1950s through the 1980s. He served in the National Guard during World War II and was primarily tasked with designing medical facilities overseas. He studied architecture at the University of Oregon, was hired by the office of architect Glenn Stanton in 1951, then went to work for the firm Wolff and Zimmer from 1953 until 1955, where one of his first projects was doing the working drawings on the new Yaw’s Top Notch building. Rudd opened his own architectural office in 1955 and designed single-family residences, apartment buildings, commercial buildings, and institutional buildings in Oregon. In the late 1960s, he remodeled Yaw’s, replacing counters and stools with seating booths to accommodate more diners. Rudd continued to practice architecture until his retirement in 1990. He died in 2003.

Sources: “Joseph Rudd, June 25, 1922-May 7, 2003” (accessed September 2025), https://www.rill.com/obituaries/joseph-rudd-17181; oral history interview with Joseph H. Rudd, SR 9250, Oregon Historical Society Research Library, https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/sr-9250-oral-history-interview-with-joseph-h-rudd

Yaw’s Top Notch was a restaurant that operated in Portland, Oregon, from 1926 until 1982. Due to its success, the restaurant expanded several times during the 1930s and 1940s and hired the architectural firm Wolff and Zimmer to design a dedicated restaurant building taking up one city block in the Hollywood neighborhood between 39th (now Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard) and 40th Avenues and NE Tillamook and Hancock Streets. The new location offered counter service and car service, and accommodated parking for more than 150 cars. Yaw’s was wildly popular with the students at nearby Grant High School and gained a reputation as an after-school and late-night hangout spot for teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s. Yaw’s Top Notch closed in 1982, and the building was razed shortly thereafter.

Sources: National Register of Historic Places documentation form for Historic and Architectural Properties in Hollywood’s Historic Commercial District in Portland, Oregon, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2000; “Images of America: Vanishing Portland,” by Ray and Jeanna Bottenberg, 2008, pages 45-46; “America’s Drive-In: Yaw’s Top Notch,” (accessed September 2025), http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/yaw_s_top_notch.html