After 63 years of business, Zesto’s Burger and Fish House has officially closed. The landmark Ballard diner is scheduled to be quickly replaced by a third location of the popular restaurant chain RoRo BBQ & Grill.

            Despite its recent decline in business, there is no denying that Zesto’s has been a treasured part of the Ballard community since its early years.  Owned for the bulk of its time by Ballard alumnus Charlie Pattok, Zesto’s was once a place for students to meet, eat, and socialize.

            Teacher and former student Jay Volk reflects on his memory of Zesto’s when he was in high school.

             “We used to hang out there after football games. Everybody would meet up there and that was the place to go and find out what was going on,” Volk said. “We’d run over there and they had the best fries, burgers, and bacon double cheeseburgers and it wasn’t that expensive for kids at school.”

            With a 1957 Chevy mounted on the roof and arcade games and jukeboxes inside, Zesto’s represented the mid-20th century culture in which it began.

            “It’s certainly been iconic in the neighborhood. It sort of goes back to that ‘50’s sort of image,” teacher Valerie Green said.

            Zesto’s has also been a convenient workplace for many students over the years.

            “A lot of my buddies worked there and if you’d get to know the people that worked there, the kids, every now and then they’d give you a milkshake or something for free,” Volk said.

            Arguably as deeply ingrained in the Ballard community as Norwegians and fish, Zesto’s was an archive of Ballard’s history as told by the many photos that hung on the restaurant’s walls. Zesto’s was an avid sponsor of Ballard’s sports teams and even of the Talisman.

I always liked the pictures and since my parents and my grandfather had gone to Ballard, I’d look at all the pictures and I thought they were neat,” principal Keven Wynkoop said. “I just always liked going there; I felt like it was a good part of Ballard and it’s definitely kind of the end of an era.”

While Zesto’s retained its old-fashioned charm until its close, it did not manage to keep a strong customer base in its later years. Since it was cited with fifteen major health violations in 2007, students who visited the diner as a lunchtime destination were gradually replaced by students who loitered in the parking lot at break.

“Since I’ve been at Ballard as a teacher, Zesto’s has become where the druggies hang out and that’s no good. It’s kind of become a nuisance,” Volk said.

At any rate, while students today might not remember meeting at Zesto’s after a big game or the way a Zesto’s bacon cheeseburger tastes, the burger joint is forever a part of the Ballard neighborhood.