The O’Malley name is a familiar one for many around town. Pat O’Malley and his wife Pam operated the O’Malley Farm Café in Waunakee for 20 years before selling it in 1997. A Walgreens now occupies the corner site at the intersection of Highways 19 and Q.
After selling, O’Malley tried his hand at real estate and consulting, but the familiar smell of bacon and eggs kept beckoning. The restaurateur was missing the service business, and when a friend informed him that the Jet Room at Wisconsin Aviation was looking for an operator, he jumped. The couple purchased the Jet Room later that year, added the O’Malley name, and never looked back.
At the time, the Jet Room could only accommodate 30 patrons, a far cry from the 175-seat restaurant they’d just sold, but O’Malley recognized the business potential for something much more. “We have something here that can’t be duplicated: our view. Throw in some celebrities or politicians, and very few restaurants in the country can offer that, as long as we take care of our customers.”
And they have, for decades “I thought a 30-seat restaurant would be great,” O’Malley states, “but it was too successful! We had to increase our staff.”
The Wisconsin Aviation building was rebuilt 15 years ago at its same location, expanding the restaurant’s capacity to 70 patrons, but beyond the breakfast specials and a menu that has largely remained the same through the years, it’s the homey familiarity of staff and menu that keeps it a local favorite. Open seven days a week for breakfast and lunch, Sunday mornings are particularly popular, frequently attracting as many as 400 diners.
Meals with a view
Pat O’Malley’s Jet Room customers are just a picture window away from the goings on of an active Wisconsin Aviation tarmac. On any given day, the airport is bustling with corporate and private jets, UW athletics team charter planes, and in the distance, F-16s taking off and landing. O’Malley, a pilot for the past 28 years, has never tired of the activity, and neither have the customers.
“Here, you’re 20-feet away from a $5 million jet,” O’Malley marvels. “We see a lot of celebrities because this is where the private aircrafts land. When the election was going on, Bill Clinton came in. We saw Air Force One, Barack Obama. We’ve also seen Robert Redford, Shania Twain, Danny DeVito. They don’t all come into the restaurant, although Danny did,” he says.
“Any time a jet pulls up I wait to see who comes off. It’s pretty cool. I’ve been able to talk to pilots from all around the world.”
Soon, his view will likely be from behind a dining table or the inside of a cockpit, because the couple sold their interest in the restaurant in February to new owners anxious to carry on the legacy. The O’Malleys are scaling down and helping out during the transition, but in just a month or so they’ll leave the Jet Room for good. [Efforts to contact the new owners were unsuccessful.]
The O’Malley name will remain, as will the menu, hours, and staff — an important prerequisite of the sale, O’Malley explains. He didn’t want his staff to worry unnecessarily.
“We probably have the best staff now that we’ve ever had,” he says. “My dishwasher has been here 12 years, my key cooks have been with us for nine years, seven years, and three years. Our waitresses have been here since I started.”
What’s the secret sauce, when other businesses are struggling to find workers?
“We pay people well,” O’Malley notes. When minimum wage was at $7.25/hour, the O’Malley’s started people at $10/hour to attract the “better high school kids.”
The business also pays 50% of employee health insurance premiums, offers a 401(k) retirement plan that matches up to 3%, and paid vacation based on longevity. “It makes solid economic sense,” O’Malley says, “paying more and paying benefits. I think that’s what’s allowed us to get some of the cream of the crop and keep them here.”
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Want an airplane ride with that?
Years ago, O’Malley added the restaurant’s famous $100 hamburger special, a salute to the airline industry. “We pilots joke about going out for a $100 hamburger,” he explains, “because by the time you fuel a plane and fly it somewhere for lunch, you’ll spend $100,” O’Malley laughs. (It likely costs much more these days.)
Customers ordering the burger special get lunch plus a certificate for an airplane ride for two over the city. “We’ve sold about 800 of those,” O’Malley reports. “It gets a lot of buzz.”
With more free time, the O’Malleys may be found jetting off more frequently in the Piper Cherokee 180 they co-own with a friend, and when they lift off into the sunset of their retirement years they’ll be able to reflect on the good friends and even better times they had after 40 years in the hospitality industry. “This has been like throwing a party every day,” O’Malley says, and he’ll miss it.
“It will be weird,” the 67-year-old admits, “but it’s a good time for us to do this. Every year has been better than the last in both sales and profits. The economy is good and I don’t really have a family to pass this on to, so unless you’re going to go out feet first you have to find a good person to take over.
“You can’t wait too long and miss the bus.”
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