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Ptah

(32,983 posts)
Wed Mar 1, 2017, 01:13 PM Mar 2017

Terminally ill Tucson restaurateur holds 'pre-wake wake' to say his goodbyes

From that moment in the doctor’s office last November, when they hit him with the diagnosis — stage 4 lung cancer — Tucson restaurateur Pat Connors knew how he wanted to go out.

With a party. A big, giant, messy affair where laughter filled in for tears and deep long hugs replaced casual hellos.

On Tuesday, Connors got his party.

“I wanted people, if they could, to come say goodbye,” he said, as a reception line that quickly grew from a couple dozen to a couple hundred winded around booths and the bar, wrapped around tables of cheese and fruit plates and snaked into the kitchen area of Connor’s central Tucson restaurant. “It kind of developed into this.”

Dozens of people showed up early for “Wake me up; a party for Pat” — which Connors dubbed his “pre-wake wake” — and by the official party start time at 4:30 p.m., the restaurant was packed. Some guests told Manish Shah, who organized the party with Michael Luria, Kristin Brakke and a couple other friends, that they had to park four or five blocks from Connors’ 19-year-old Pastiche Food + Drink, 3025 N. Campbell Ave.

http://tucson.com/news/local/terminally-ill-tucson-restaurateur-holds-pre-wake-wake-to-say/article_1b5f366d-d1f6-5f43-9aa6-ec832402bab0.html
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Terminally ill Tucson restaurateur holds 'pre-wake wake' to say his goodbyes (Original Post) Ptah Mar 2017 OP
Thanks for the recommendations. Ptah Mar 2017 #1
Pastiche owner Pat Connors dies at 48 Ptah Mar 2017 #2

Ptah

(32,983 posts)
2. Pastiche owner Pat Connors dies at 48
Mon Mar 6, 2017, 07:06 AM
Mar 2017
Pat Connors, the longtime Tucson restaurateur who threw his own pre-wake wake party last week to say goodbye to friends and family, died early Sunday after a months-long battle with lung cancer. He was 48.

His death came days after hundreds packed his central Tucson restaurant on Tuesday and stood in line for as long as an hour to give Connors one last hug and share memories.

“There is not a restaurateur in this town that has done more for this community than Julie (Connors) and Pat have,” said former restaurateur Michael Luria, whose family hired Connors in the 1990s for his first restaurant job at Terra Cotta, where the Connors met. “I don’t think there’s an instance where Pat and Julie said no. They exemplify what philanthropy in the business community looks like.”

“Pat is hands-down the most giving person in Tucson,” Doug Levy, chef/owner of Feast on East Speedway, said of his friend of nearly 30 years. “What I would hope is his legacy would be to remember what a kind, spirited, generous person he was.”

http://tucson.com/entertainment/dining/pastiche-owner-pat-connors-dies-at/article_77ad15cf-586f-521f-bdbc-96e3517f8edd.html


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