It’s known as the Best breakfast restaurant in Pittsburgh. Their pancakes were rated in the top 10 by AOL.
They came in First Place in Pittsburgh magazine 2008 Readers Poll of best breakfast restaurants.
Citysearch.com readers named them the Best Breakfast in Pittsburgh in 2006 in 2007 as well as Best Brunch in 2006. Pittsburgh City Paper named them Best Breakfast in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
City’s Best at AOL and Moon Travel Guides named them the Best Place for Breakfast in Pittsburgh.
We spoke with Gail Klingensmith, the G in P and G’s Pamela’s Diner.
Q – You and Pam operate three locations do you?
A – No. There are six. We’ve had six forever. Pam and I have sold two to former employees and one to her sister. But, there are still six Pamela’s diners, only 4 that Pam and I are still active in.
Q – I would think one diner would be enough and take up all your time.
A – It was. We were in our 20s.
Q – How do you manage four?
A – It’s not about us anymore. It’s about staff. We’ve mentored a couple of young women that are the fresh and young Pam and Gail now that Pam and Gail are not so fresh and young. They’ve hired well and we have long-term employees and that’s why were able to do what we do.
Q – Could you franchise this business of yours?
A – We could have. That takes an extraordinary amount of effort and the young women that we mentored are married with husbands and have children and I don’t think they have the time for that, and Pam and I no longer have the energy for that. But, we’ve been asked a number of times to do.
Q – If you couldn’t franchise the restaurant, could you have come out with your own product line?
A – Possibly. We could have done our pancakes. We want people to continue to come to our restaurant and not make their pancakes at home. That’s sort of a diminishing return in a way.
Q – You’re the business partner of this operation, correct?
A – Yes
Q – Do you get involved in the actual cooking of the products?
A – Well, let’s just say there was a point in time when Pam and I were both cooks and both waited tables. We did it all. I don’t cook anymore. I certainly have the scars to show you that I can, working the grill, working the Fryers and being the facilitator when we cooked at the White House (for President Obama). Pam was the cook and I was the facilitator. I did the plating in the serving.
Q – How much competition did you have in Pittsburgh?
A – There is a lot of competition. There are all the national chains and then there’s also some nice, small, local restaurants that are primarily breakfast. We offer something in a lot of different neighborhoods. We offer the ability that you can walk to us. We have sidewalks everywhere. No drive-in restaurants in essence. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh but it set up in different neighborhoods and each one sort of has a different flair to it, flavor so to speak. Like there’s a high-end shopping Jewish neighborhood. There’s a strip district which is kind of electric now were all the produce and everything used to come to the yards down there were it was once ethnic. For us it was always location, location. We became accessible I guess. We became like “Cheers”. If Pam or I were working at your location, the person who worked there, knew you and knew what you liked and how you liked it. That’s just the way it was. And, it’s still that way. I think it’s because there are neighborhoods. We just don’t go into a parking lot or mall.
Q – So, you knew in advance the neighborhoods you wanted to go in didn’t you?
A – Well, that’s how we did it, yeah. We started that way with just one. That was an opportunity we had to purchase that restaurant. It was an operating restaurant. It was Hamburg and Hot Dog joint. It happened to be in a neighborhood Pam grew up in. We started from there. It’s sort of like our restaurants are like we are. We’re Pittsburghers.
Q – Have you had any famous people come into your restaurants?
A – We’ve had a ton. They go back as far as Smokey Robinson, Mia Farrow, the Fonz Henry Winkler, Sharon Glass and Sharon Stone. All the big sports names.
Q – Do you have a special place you seat famous people in your restaurant?
A – No. We now have something called the “Obama Table”, the table I ate with the Obama’s at . (Laughs). Everybody wants to sit there.
Q – You could probably charge extra to seat them there!
A – Either that or they’re like don’t put me there! (Laughs). It’s a weird thing. People are weird.
Q – How do you prevent one of these celebrities from being bothered by the public for “Selfies” or autographs? Does that situation ever occur?
A – It never happens. It does not happen.
Q – When Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008, did he just happened to come in?
A – One of the senator Obama’s campaign workers was the son of a man who owned a business down the street from us. He was a regular with us. So, they stopped to say hi! To him. They said, “let’s go get something to eat and they walked up to us. It was a fluke, a major fluke.
Q – When he stepped in your business, was he recognized?
A – Well, what happened was, they called us from down the street. Was it okay? Because this was now an entourage. It was primary day in Pennsylvania. They had Secret Service. He had an entourage at that point. So, they shut everything down. Actually Pam and I came from one of the other stores and got there before he got there. People recognized him. Have you ever been around them?
Q – No.
A – They just light up the room. They just glow with goodness. I didn’t know them from Adam. I was a big Hillary fan. I was a big Hillary supporter. When I met them I literally fell in love with them both. They were so good and I can’t even tell you. So pure is all I can say.
Q – Have Bill and Hillary ever been in the restaurant?
A – Never in the restaurant, but, I certainly met both of them. President Bush was in the restaurant in Melville. He didn’t eat in the restaurant but he came in and spoke at the back of the restaurant. He flew in on a helicopter.
Q – You’re talking about George W?
A – Yeah, the son.
Q – After Barack Obama became president he invited you and Pam to the White House to make your pancakes for him, didn’t he?
A – Yes, he did.
Q – What was that experience like? You got to go in the White House kitchen and use any piece of equipment you wanted and staff members for help?
A – Absolutely, and the White House chef and her name is Chris Comerford and she is still the White House chef. She was so nice to us and so helpful. She came in the day before Memorial Day to help us prep because you just don’t walk in without ingredients. She helped us clean and organize and explained to us how it would be. Of course they picked us up in a limo from the hotel and through security and waving us down. The kitchen was small. The grill area that we needed to cook on needed to be brought up to standards for us because that wasn’t their primary cooking area. We spent probably a half a day before and then got there about six in the morning on Memorial Day. We did our thing and they gave us silver presidential platters to serve our platters on and they had runners and servers. They operate in a small area. I believe the brunch was in the State dining room or the East room. One of the two. People run the food. So, people would come down running and grabbing platters. Pam would be cooking and I would be plating. We were serving the one that is a strawberry hot cake. It has a little bit of sour cream and brown sugar in the fresh strawberries are laid on it. It’s folded with chocolate cream. They are very thin like creeps. So, that was my area. Pam was over there cooking by herself and there was me doing, that saying Pam, hurry up, and Pam saying, I’m doing it as fast as I can. It was like 35 years of Pam and I hanging out, cooking together and now were doing it in the White House. It was unbelievable.
Q – Did the White House pay for your transportation to Washington, DC?
A – No we drove down, I think they offered. I can’t remember.
Q – How about your hotel?
A – Maybe they paid for our rooms. I’m not sure.
Q – Did you bring in any of your kitchen equipment to the White House?
A – Well, we did sneak in two of our flippers. They’re just something that we order in special because our pancakes are these big use crêpe like things. So, the flipper has to be very thin and pliable and large. So, we snuck two of them in. Any of the ingredients that we sent down and ordered had to go through the presidential clearing facility and I believe it was in Maryland. So, it was all there when we got there.
Q – I don’t suppose the President said to his chef “take note of how Pam and Gail are making these pancakes so I can have them all the time.”
A – (Laughs). He might have, but, I don’t know. But, she was lovely (Chris Comerford) was lovely and so helpful and how she puts out dinners in this thing, tiny kitchen is beyond me. It’s the size of our kitchen. It’s shift staging area as she sets up in how she works it, but, she’s amazing. She actually set people up to have breakfast at our place.
Q – I think the Oval Office was just remodeled. From what you’re describing sounds like the kitchen should be remodeled.
A – Well, I don’t know that there’s the space. The kitchen itself, it wasn’t that it was so old, it’s just that it’s so tight. So tight. You see the pastries that come out of there especially for holidays and things, it’s on a whole other floor. The service elevators in that place our as old as the White House obviously. There is another room that’s the grill room where they do barbecue and meets and roasts, things like that downstairs, even lower than where they were. They took us on tours and just opened themselves up. It was just amazing. Time of our life.
