(Kristi Maddocks, assistant manager at the La Jolla Pannikin at the time I held the same title in Encinitas, contributes her memories of the San Diego coffee chain’s founder.)
It is with great sadness I say adieu to Pannikin co- founder Bob Sinclair, who was killed in a motorcycle accident last month. Bob died while riding his Moto Guzzi in the New Mexico desert.
Like many Pannikin employees, I started my stint there as a bright-eyed teenager, fueling up on coffee as I pored over notes with high-school study groups at the Del Mar and Encinitas Station cafés. Then, it graduated to hanging out at La Jolla café on weekend mornings, after a later night of dancing or at the tail end of a very cold scooter ride up the beautiful Southern California coast. Nothing was cooler than congregating on the deck of La Jolla Pannikin in the warm sun with your friends, living off an almost endless cup of coffee and bags of day-old bagels & day-old pastries. (That is back when the first cup of coffee was 75 cents, refills were 25 cents each!)