The Bremerton Beat

Another Kitsap Sun staffer called and said Pat’s was closed.

After making different phone calls to try to verify this, I eventually drove to the site and saw the evidence. We still don’t have official verification, but the sign in the window says enough.

Pat’s Restaurant & Bakery, located in the same shopping center as Grocery Outlet and the former Stupid Prices, appears to be the latest victim of the sour economy.

I tried to call the restaurant but the line was disconnected. I tried to call the woman who is listed as the owner, but left a message at a place I’m not sure was hers.

The Washington Secretary of State’s office shows Pat’s was incorporated in 1992, but that would have been its current incarnation. A Kitsap Sun story names the start date of Pat’s as 1981. Originally it was Pat’s Cookie Jar.

Last year, in anticipation of a story on the county’s assumption of a $40.5 million loan from the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority, Josh Brown and I sat down and discussed the matter over breakfast at Pat’s. True to his thrifty image he ordered a $5 breakfast special. I ordered a regular breakfast and was wowed by it.

Months later I took my 2-year-old back with me for another morning meeting of sorts. He loved it, but he won’t miss it. I will.

Less than a year ago Sun reporter Rachel Pritchett wrote about increasing food prices and the effect it was having on consumers and food sellers. The story included a bit from Pat’s.

At Pat’s Restaurant and Bakery in East Bremerton, owner Mildred Whiteside is trying to hold back prices by sending employees home early and donning an apron herself.

“I don’t know how long we can,” she said.

A hunk of cheese that cost her $15 several months ago now costs $30, she said. Grill oil that recently cost $20 now costs $39, she said.

Higher fuel prices have resulted in fewer people visiting her restaurant, and her suppliers have added a $7-per-visit fuel surcharge.

“Oh, we’ve felt it really bad,” Whiteside said.

That’s quite a contrast from the story JoAnne Marez wrote in 1996. The piece was titled, “Rolling in Dough.” You can read it after the jump.

(more…)

Silvia Klatman, executive director at the Bremerton Area Chamber of Commerce for nearly a decade, announced Tuesday she is resigning to take a new job.

Klatman will work in public affairs with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport beginning in January.

Klatman said the new job offers a good opportunity for personal and professional growth. “They’re looking at expanding their communications with employees,” she said. “It sounded very interesting and intriguing.”

Steve Green, president of the chamber, said Klatman will be difficult to replace. “She’s done a wonderful job for the community,” he said.

Green said the chamber’s board will wait until Jan. 4 to begin accepting resumes for a new executive director. Between now and then board members will be coming to an agreement about what they are looking for in Klatman’s replacement.

In addition to running the day-to-day affairs for the chamber, Klatman was often the face of the organization, leading chamber lunches and moderating early-morning political debates during campaign season. She began as executive director in August of 2000 but had worked for the chamber before as well as for the Kitsap Economic Development Council.

Klatman said Bremerton’s volunteers and business leaders will continue to keep the city growing. “The big thing that Bremerton has going for it, and frankly has always has had going for it, are the people,” she said.

Not sure you remember way back to 2006, but that’s when Inc. Magazine had one of its lists and Bremerton ranked on it pretty high. Afterward an editorial writer for the CK Reporter wrote a blistering piece telling Bremerton to stop riding Silverdale’s coattails.

Well, Bremerton is doing it again, only this time it isn’t that Bremerton is particularly high on the list. Kiplinger.com ranks metro areas for its “Best Cities” list. The list measures how well cities maintain work in tough times, how the workforce stands to see more jobs created when the economy improves and something Kiplinger calls the “creative class” of jobs, described like this:

“Creative-class workers — scientists, engineers, educators, writers, artists, entertainers and others — inject both economic and cultural vitality into a city and help make it a vibrant place to live.”

For our area the site calls us Bremerton-Silverdale, so it looks like Silverdale is riding Bremerton’s coattails. Actually this is a classic example of what the CK reporter blast was talking about, though in this case Silverdale gets mentioned. In fact it’s clear by the population numbers that what Kiplinger is talking about is all of Kitsap County. So in this case Bremerton is riding on the entire county’s workforce, because we all know Bremerton has no steady workforce, well except for that shipyard thingy.

For cost of living we’re right at the national average. For the percentage of our workforce in the creative class, we have 29 percent, which is 139th out of 361, assuming my count is correct. Longview is around 344th with 21.6 percent. Olympia is 19th with 36.1 percent.

In median family income we’re 40th at $57,139. Seattle-Bellevue is tops in this state at $61,740, which is 22nd in the country. Yakima is in the neighborhood of 290th with a median of $40,321.

In salary growth, and this won’t surprise anyone skeptical of government, Olympia is sixth in the country at 22 percent between 2004 and 2008. Lewiston, Idaho-Washington is about 340th at 2.5 percent. Kitsap gets in at number 86 with a 9 percent jump in salaries.

Imagine how well Bremerton would have done if it didn’t have to carry Port Orchard. Zoing!

Sun file photo from 1982

In the early 1980s, Bremerton child chic included acid-washed jeans, double slouched socks — and Charly B sweatshirts.

It was Bremerton’s hometown brand during a time of brand-logo mania and when there were department stores and lots of people downtown.

Local kids saved allowances and begged their parents for the shirts. An elementary school had a Charly B day. The shirts popped up in spots across the country, though they were sold only in Kitsap.

Maybe it’s because some things from the ’80s (I said some) are trendy again. Maybe Bremerton pride is back. Or maybe its because those ’80s kids are old enough to be nostalgic.

Whatever it is, Charly B shirts are back.

A few shirts are appearing around town and being shipped off to former Kitsap residents across the country.

But before we get into that, a little background on the shirts:

They are the creation of longtime businessman Chuck Bair, who sold them first at a clothing store he owned with his wife, Patty, on Pacific Avenue, across from JC Penny — when there still was a JC Penny.

Chuck had created the logo, a doodled script, for their retail store and eventually printed shirts that he sold there and later at stores in Redwood Plaza and the South Kitsap Mall.

Nearly 70,000 shirts sold in the four years the Charly B clothing stores were open.

But then the Kitsap Mall happened to downtown Bremerton.

“We were one of the first ones to leave because we saw the writing on the wall,” Patty said. And they didn’t have the capital to open a store in the mall, Chuck said.

And with the Charly B stores went the Charly B shirts.

Since that time, the couple focused on other businesses: their property management business; Patty ran franchise Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores; they briefly opened an Ivar’s in Redwood Plaza; and in 2006, they opened Kitsap Lake Storage.

All the while, people kept asking about the shirts. They’d regale the couple with memories of their shirts, remembering even the color.

So the Bairs started printing them again and as people asked for more, they printed more. They lined the shelves of an office room with shirts in multiple colors. They put out a sign in front of Kitsap Lake Storage, “and lo and behold it’s taken off again,” Chuck said.

Some thanks for recent demand goes to online social networks.

One fan created a “Charly B. Resurrection” group on Facebook and news of the shirts’ comeback was posted on the wall of the Facebook group “I Can’t Believe I grew up in Kitsap County in the 80′s”, which has 1,700 members. They’ve referred to it as “AWESOME,” with exclamation points and called it a “great blast from the past.” One person wrote, “are y’all for real? i’ve been wanting another one. to match my black w/ multi-colored lettering Esprit tote bag that i am STILL rockin’ after all these years ”

In April, the Bairs put up a web site to sell the shirts and post old photos and memories from customers.

About 400 to 500 have sold.

LeAnn Williams worked in the clothing stores as a young adult, and now works at the storage facility.

“Who’d have thought 30 years later I’d be folding Charly B sweatshirts (again)?” she exclaimed.

The shirts’ renewed success may not portend the return of Charly B clothing stores.

“I think it still has potential,” Chuck said, though he said he doesn’t really spend a lot of time thinking about it. “Right now its a fun sideline.”

“We’ll just see where it goes. We’ve mad e a little investment in it again. Its not about making money, its about bringing something back that was important to a lot of people.”

—  Angela Dice

This rapid fire succession of blog posts is the result of yours truly catching up with e-mails after the weekend in Olympia.

The News Tribune, as in the newspaper from Tacoma, has all the hubbub over Sonic’s arrival in Puyallup.

Chris Henry, over at the “Speaking of South Kitsap” blog points out that the article mentions that the franchise owner is scouting other locations, including Port Orchard and Bremerton.

Chris, however, has never been to a Sonic. As a person who has, I want to correct one point. I don’t think it carries the cachet Krispy Kreme once did. (“When Krispy Kremes are hot, they are to other doughnuts what angels are to people.” — Roy Blount Jr.) I don’t think Krispy Kreme is as beloved as it once was, given that you can find them anywhere now, except here, of course.

Being one who knows the highs and lows of paper-bag dinner fare, I can talk a little about Sonic. I think people like Sonic, but I don’t know that there’s the affinity for that as much as there is for the heavenly doughnut, or the In-N-Out hamburger. If there are Sonicaholics among you, feel free to correct me.

This whole development, however, is important for another reason. It opens up a little battle between Bremerton and the red-headed stepchild across the bay. Both of us, I believe, have enough vacant store fronts that would accommodate a Sonic, but Sonic wants a place where its employees can roller skate to your window, so I don’t know where the best place for that is.

Should Sonic arrive in Port Orchard first, I hereby commit to come spend my money at your store, as a gesture of my acknowledgment of your victory. And I’ll bring along someone’s red-headed stepchild.

The Seattle Times yesterday deviated from its practice of warmly reviewing the  downtown revival and chasing police blotter here to offer a business story about us with some punch.

It’s not new territory to report WestSound Bank’s financial troubles (WSFG’s stock was at $0.40/share Monday and we’ve reported on the company’s problems here), but the Times’ analysis of state banks ranks WestSound as the most troubled. Not exactly what Bremerton courts statewide coverage over, though investors should be pleased when public companies are scrutinized.

Among the paper’s revelations: The bank’s “comprehensive risk ratio,” which indicates weakness based on nonperforming and noncurrent assets like foreclosed real estate, is the highest of 52 Washington banks in the study, at 282 percent. The two other Kitsap banks included, Kitsap Bank and American Marine, had ratios of 30.9 and 65.6, for comparison.

Putting the struggles of community banks in this context helps shed light on the industry here, since we have a number of them in town, and the data used is interesting to go through. Anyone following Westsound’s story knows it’s not just the Citis and WaMus that made dumb bets and loaned far more than was responsible, and problems exists for some of the little guys as well. Westsound has acknowledged mistakes and will not fall under SEC sanctions, and last June new CEO Terry Peterson announced a three-year plan to stability. If the Times’ data is any indication, it’ll be an uphill road.

— David Nelson

I had seen hints of Barney’s Quick Stop’s coming closure (I mean other than every headline about the economy and gas prices), but didn’t hit home until today. Not that I’m overly nostalgic for a fairly run-of-the-mill gas station in the neighborhood (insert 7-11 joke by Binion here), but I was on ‘E’ this morning and was really hoping to swing through the Perry Avenue station and fill up. I’ve arrived there a few times in that same predicament, and always appreciated having the station close. (Fortunately, though maybe not for Barney, there are two other stations within a couple blocks of Manette).

Anyway, just announcing here that Barney’s is deserted, the sign on the corner of Perry and Sheridan gone, the shelves bare inside, no answer on the phone and no explanation other than a ‘Closed/Cerrado’ sign on the door. The guy that sat there every day (Barney? I always assumed it was), seemed friendly and good-natured when I’d stop by, so there was that feeling of guilt in addition to the panic of not having an immediate fill-up this morning. Sign of the times, I suppose.

— David Nelson

To know the concept of “pay it forward,” I hear, all you have to do is drink expensive coffee and spend no time out of your car to get it. It happened again today, at Starbucks on 303 in East Eastern East Bremerton. (Technically, that’s Central Kitsap, but I answered the phone.)

Well, that’s not true if you wrote this letter, which said this:

“While it’s nice to buy a stranger a cup of coffee, Paying it Forward involves doing significant good deeds. If all that coffee money was spent instead on someone who needed it, that would be Paying it Forward.”

Here’s how it works. Someone decides to buy the next person’s order. That next person, it turns out, is you. You get to the window, ready to pay for your somethingiatto and the attendant tells you that the woman in the Pacer who just left paid for your order. “Cool!” you think. Here’s where it ends, though. The attendant then asks, “Would you like to pay for the next person’s order?”

Shannon Bray of Bremerton was the 180th person in the “Pay it Forward” line today at Starbucks. She thought it was pretty darned neat. In fact, “neat” was her word. “Especially with the economy, it’s really neat.”

Brynn Grimley, formerly of “The CK Beat,” said around the holidays she was about 180th in one of these, and thinks another time the woman in front of her broke the chain.

She takes some issue with the letter writer above, because she really does need the coffee in the morning.

I called the Starbucks folks and they said the thing ended at 183, which they said might be a local record. No one really keeps track, though. I say the record is 211. Go ahead. Disprove me.

Brynn and I talked about the nuance between this pay it forward routine and what the letter writer proposed, that you do something similar to what was done in the movie with the kid who who was Forrest Gump‘s son and sees dead people. In that movie, Pay it Forward, the kid does a good deed and tells people to pay it back by doing something good for three other people and telling them to do the same, paying it forward instead of paying it back.

OK, so maybe buying a coffee in a cup and in a cake isn’t the same as fixing someone’s bike or giving them your ticket to the inauguration, but Brynn said it was pretty nice when it happened to her. That’s probably the point, don’t you think.

If you focus on the money, then there are clear winners and losers. Bray ordered a coffee and a treat, but the person behind her only bought a cup, so she came out ahead financially.

If you don’t focus on the money, though, you get surprised by someone’s generosity. Then you get the opportunity to continue the good will. Maybe you feel guilted into it, but you don’t have to feel that way. Today about 183 people had that choice. I bet more than half of them talked about it with others. I bet a few of those others will decide to do something nice. It could happen.

Bremerton gets smug with Port Orchard after enjoying a delicious meal from Popeyes.

And remember how someone from Port Orchard got all superior and stuff because they had Popeyes first?

They were all, “We had it first.”

And we were all, “Whatever.”

Remember how there seemed to be a pent-up demand when Popeyes opened here, because there were long lines and stuff?

Yeah, that was awesome.

And you can still get in line in Bremerton.

Not so in Port Orchard. The Popeyes there is closed. I’ve contacted headquarters to find out why, which is really Rachel Pritchett’s job, but I couldn’t resist an opportunity to get all childish.

On my home one of these days, I’m going to stop by and get me some Popeyes, because I still can. The spicy chicken in still in the house in Bremerton.

Yo, Port Orchard. Now that I’m contributing here again, you’re back on notice.

From the late breaking department:

Four officials from the state Attorney General’s Office will visit Bremerton tonight for a dinner meeting and educational seminar.

Hosted by the Puget Rental Owners Association, the officials will address eminent domain and identity theft, according to an invitation from the association.

Here’s the media release.

When: Tuesday, March 25, 2008; 6:00 PM
Where: AA China Buffet, 3583 Wheaton Way in East Bremerton.
Price: No charge for attendance
Food: If inclined to eat, approx. $10.00 + tip for the a full course Chinese Buffet

Who:

Janelle Guthrie, AGO Communications Director;
Tim Ford, AGO Open Government Ombudsman;
Mary Gould and Lisa Hanna, AGO Consumer Protection Division.

Subjects :
1. Confiscation of private property for public use (Eminent Domain) – fair market value of confiscated property; notification requirements; purposes for which eminent domain can be used; blighted property and eminent domain; US Supreme Court decisions in Connecticut and its outfall; Sound Transit acquisition in Pierce County; private sector ventures and the public good; what the state legislators have done in response to the US Supreme Court decision; what the Attorney General (Rob McKenna) has done or proposed on this subject, etc.

2. Identity (ID) Theft – who is being affected/targeted; when do you know; what to do; credit freezes; jurisdictional issues among different states; reporting, to who; local jurisdictional issues in taking reports; how do you protect yourself, etc.

You are all invited to attend and participate in this educational forum.
Dinner and discussion is generally about two + hours….