Co-founder of P&G Pamela’s diner remembered
Mt. Lebanon woman, business partner put popular eatery on map
Pam Cohen lost more than a valued business partner a month ago.
“We were best friends who were in business together six days a week for more than 40 years,” she said of Gail Klingensmith, who died of cancer May 12.
Their dedication to each other and the enterprise they started enabled them to launch and nurture P&G Pamela’s into a popular and successful group of dining destinations in the Pittsburgh region.
The two are the P&G in name and deed.
They celebrated a very happy new year in 1980 when they opened their first location, in the Squirrel Hill section of the city. That site eventually closed, but five are still operating: in Mt. Lebanon; the Strip District, Oakland and Shadyside in Pittsburgh; and Millvale.
Pamela’s is now employee owned. “We sold shares,” Cohen said.
P&G is renowned for its breakfasts and draws large groups of diners, especially in the large Strip and Oakland restaurants and in Mt. Lebanon.
Some local residents remember the Strip location for another reason. Campaigning for re-election in the erstwhile Steel City, President Barack Obama stopped there for lunch and mentioned Pamela’s name in TV and radio interviews.
“One of the things that put us on the map was the presidential attention,” said Jason Zmenkowski, a longtime employee who now manages the Strip locale. “The day after he came, we started hiring more staff.”
Obama was enamored of Pamela’s and its pancakes, and his memories at the Strip continue to endure. On Memorial Day 2013, following his re-election, the president invited Klingensmith and Cohen Pam to prepare breakfast at the White House.
“Gail was en route to the Strip when she got a call from the White House,” Pam recalled. “She said, ‘Yeah, I don’t believe it.’ But it was real. Afterward, the president invited us to eat with a group of government officials.
That wasn’t Gail and Pam’s last contact with the commander in chief. Pam said she and Gail were later invited to annual Christmas parties and an inaugural ball in Washington, D.C.
Then after learning that Gail had passed away, the former president sent a handwritten letter to Pam, expressing his sympathies.
Cohen said that in September, Gail started having some strange sensations, which she thought might be appendix-related. She went to an emergency room for tests and was diagnosed as having a rare Stage 4 form of lung cancer. A reading specialist for a number of school districts in a previous career, she died May 12.
“It’s been a terrible nine months,” Pam said.
Gail, 71, who resided in the North Hills, is survived by her spouse of 32 years, Kathryn Chatfield; a sister, Mary Jane Rowe; and numerous other relatives.
“She was really a saint,” Pam said. “I can’t tell you how many employees she helped by paying for a water tank that blew up or you needed money. You could always count on Gail.”
“Gail is probably one of the nicest persons I’ve known,” Zmenkowski said during a shift inside the Strip District diner. “She had a lot of employees and made everyone feel special.”