Pat Belding Interview: The Dream! Operating a Sports Bar in Retirement
Diana Landau | May 19, 2026
It’s baseball season again so you can be sure Carl is interviewing someone connected to the sport. In this interview, Pat Belding, a former marketing agency owner is now running a Sports Bar at age 66. Sure, some people have always thought it would be fun to have their own restaurant or bar “some day” but Pat is actually doing it. After he passed on his agency to his employees in 2021, he came face-to-face with his first retirement. Pat shares with us experiments tried, lessons learned and he’s still knocking it out of the park.
Pat is a native San Franciscan, growing up in the West Portal, the oldest in a family of 5. He says that as a kid, he was always curious, always trying something new and different. He also pushed the boundaries with his parents. “I had a great group of friends to keep me on track,” he says.
After college, he trained and worked in the graphic arts and creative industry, founding his own marketing agency, Belding Associates in 1984. He worked with Fortune 100 companies like 3M, Cisco, Google and more. Pat adds, “1992 was an exciting time. The whole industry was changing so dramatically.”
By 2021, the marketing industry had been utterly transformed by technology and social media. Pat shares that something shifted for him and he realized it was time to step away. “The transition was surreal. "I quickly learned I wasn't quite as relevant as I thought was!” But he began to realize that in (un)retirement he had the chance to do all things he had never had time for while he’d been working.
After completing all the house projects, Pat says his wife gently hinted that maybe he could find other places to put his energy. “I wasn't necessarily frustrated or bored. I just left myself be open to things.” Like many of our podcast guests, this was a period of experimentation for him. He volunteered to help restore hiking paths, worked for the US Census where he hired people and learned what it’s like to work with the federal government. He also worked for the SF Giants for a while. He says he never really had an “Aha” moment. “I still don't know if I’m doing it (unretirement) right, but it drives me to succeed.”
Pat is still pushing way beyond his comfort zone, this time with his current venture. Three years ago he started helping out at Frankie’s, a cool sports bar on the South Beach marina and just a short walk from Oracle Park, where the SF Giants play. Frankie's, originally named the Java Hut, has a special history--it's the oldest operating eatery on the San Francisco waterfront. It's been around for over a century.
One year into it, and with no prior experience in the food service industry, Pat started managing Frankie's and he's a part-owner as well. He says that daily he deals with customers, employees, food and beverage vendors, and everything in between. He’s building a solid team and hopes to be able to step back sometime in the future. “Right now I’m in the trenches! Be careful what you say ‘yes’ to.” In the off-season, Pat travels with his wife and spends time with family and friends, but Franke’s still keeps him pretty busy. And of course, he’s always cheering for the SF Giants to win.
Pat’s tips on (un)retirement:
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“Don’t be afraid to take chances. Stay curious!”
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“I think it’s really easy to stay in your comfort zone, especially as we get older. Now is the time to adopt a ‘Why Not? "mentality!”
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“Get engaged as much as possible, (with all ages) because there’s so much more you can add value to in your community and our world.”
Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog.
