Pat Nolan relocates to Ken's Market
He's baaack. Pat Nolan - of Pat's on the Ave fame - is back on Queen Anne Hill whipping up espresso drinks. Except this time, the Queen Anne High School alumnus and lifelong booster is working for someone else: Ken's Market, where his cousin, Joe Vizzare, is part owner.
Nolan sold Pat's on the Ave almost two years ago so he could get a life and spend more time with his family, Nolan said at the time. The idea was to find a job that had regular hours, something that was rarely possible when he owned and ran Pat's, Nolan added.
"Then I went to work for Nordstrom," he said of a job that didn't turn out the way he expected. Nolan's work hours were all over the map, he said, and the flexibility of a work schedule he wanted simply wasn't there.
For example, Nolan and his family had been in the habit of going to Hawaii for a vacation the day after Christmas, he said.
But that is the same day Nordstrom starts its half-yearly men's sale, so the Hawaii trip was out of the question.
Nolan left Nordstrom last summer, he said. "It wasn't what I thought it was going to be," the master barista explained. "I wanted to be back in the community I grew up in and worked in for 20 years." Besides, Nolan added, he missed his old customers on Queen Anne Hill.
Then opportunity knocked last year when he was sitting around the Christmas tree with his cousin Vizzare, Nolan said. The espresso stand has always been part of Ken's Market, but the staffer running it most of the time lately had left for school, Vizzare said.
"Maybe you'd be a great fit (at Ken's) and come back to Queen Anne and do coffee," Vizzare remembers telling Nolan, who certainly didn't need the training.
So Nolan is back in the neighborhood making espresso drinks. "But I also work in the deli and the counter a bit," he said. Working in the deli has allowed Nolan to make his popular Pat's chicken salad again, something customers ask for by name, Vizzare said.
Nolan has also brought some former Pat's on the Ave customers to Ken's, Vizzare added. For many of those customers, it's a déjà vu moment. "Some people will walk up and see me and go like ... Paaat," he smiled. "Ken's is the perfect fit."
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