Patty Palmer put her heart into running the Coffee Coop for 27 years, enjoying chats with long-standing customers who dropped in daily for a cup of joe.
After suffering a heart attack in August, Palmer is home recovering.
For the first time in years, she is allowing people to wait on her, but only for a short while.
“My family wouldn’t let me go back to work,” she said. “Which is why I shut the door. But I am not going to say I have settled into retirement just yet.”
Since April 1, 1987 Palmer headed out the door at 6 a.m. to make the trek from her Genelle home into downtown Trail to put on a pot of coffee and welcome a regular crowd of customers Monday through Friday.
“I do miss it,” she said. “It’s a big thing when something you have done 12 hours a day for so long suddenly ends. But I am getting better so now I have to find some new hobbies.”
For Palmer’s husband Dave, having his wife home full-time is a welcome change.
“All those years she was busy with the business and raising two boys,” he said. “I like having Patti home and now she keeps me on my toes.”
In a flying the coop send-off, Dave invites customers and friends to join the family for an open house retirement party in the Genelle Community Hall on Nov. 23, starting at 3:30 p.m.
“There are a lot of people who would like to visit Patty,” said Dave. “I invite them to pop in and wish her well.”