Offices to replace Zesto's drive-in; owner, Chevy to drive off
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For anyone who can hum all of Buddy Holly's songs and dredge up memorable moments at just the mention of a '57 Chevy, something awful is happening in Ballard.
Zesto's is closing.
By May, the place that immortalized teenage cruisin' and went so far as to make the '57 Chevy a cultural icon by putting one on the roof, will be gone.
The lot at 6416 15th Ave. N.W., across from Ballard High School, has been sold, says Charlie Pattok, and while there's a three-month waiting period to go through escrow, it looks like the deal is done. When the sale closes, the drive-in restaurant will be torn down, and a three-story office building will go up.
Pattok, 57, said he "burned out on the restaurant business" about 10 years ago. He said he is too young to retire and is looking for work, perhaps in sales or as a manufacturer's representative.
The black Chevy, hoisted up on a steel platform in 1989, where it eventually eclipsed the name recognition of a big "Zesto's" sign, will disappear. It's already sold, going for $15,000 the day after word of the closing started going around last month.
"The guy who bought it has five '57s," said Pattok. "He wants everything, every picture, even the Zesto's special license-plate frame."
The Ballard Zesto story began when Pattok's father left Grand Rapids, Mich., with his family and moved to Tacoma, then learned about a national franchise called Zesto's that had invented the first continuous-feed ice-cream dispenser. In 1952, he moved to a choice location, across the street from Ballard High.
"The kids talked Dad into putting hot dogs in," said Pattok, and things just built from there.
"We've created a white elephant here," he said. "If we'd gone with a minimal menu, no inside seating, we'd still be in business."
Instead, the business was expanded, with exotic burgers added, inside booths installed and a neon "Club 57" sign over a counter. Just the steel supports to hold up the car cost $10,000.
For many years, it worked. Blown-up photos inside the restaurant show crowds of kids in the '50s, '60s, '70s and even the '80s jamming the place.
"I went to Ballard High School over there, and this was the place to be," said Chuck Larsen, a member of the class of '65, who still remembers burning tires outside and how kids would go to the south side to smoke so that teachers couldn't see them.
Then things began to change.
"This has been coming for a long time," said Pattok of the decision to close. "About eight years ago, the 99-cent hamburger wars started."
Profits in the fast-food business began to be based almost entirely on volumes, and small operators such as Pattok couldn't compete in buying supplies against national chains.
When burgers were 19 cents, Zesto's used to employ a crew of 25, and people outside couldn't get inside to place an order.
"This business was meant to run on $1-an-hour help," said Pattok.
Now there are about 10 employees on any given night, and the crowds are gone.
"We lost quite a few thousand dollars," he said, "hoping it would turn around."
It didn't, and when a buyer came forward a few months ago, Pattok accepted the offer, putting up a "for sale" sign outside as a back-up strategy.
"It's kind of sad, in a lot ways," said Pattok. "For an independent to make it now, you have to have a niche."
For most of the kids who stop in now, a '57 Chevy means nothing, he said, and you'd have to hoist a Honda to the roof to get something of the same effect.
But no one's ever written a hit song about a Honda engine, like the Beach Boys did for Chevy's 409.