Starbucks cafe employees remember a shop regular

Andrew Edwards

Pamela Balint is remembered as a quiet woman who usually kept to

herself but always had a smile ready for employees at a local cafe.

On the night of Tuesday, Dec. 22, police were told by Balint’s

son, who police wouldn’t identify, that he could not enter her

Downtown apartment. Upon entering the building, Pamela Balint was

discovered lying on the floor with multiple stab wounds.

Jamie Balint, a second son of Pamela’s who shared the apartment

with her, was found near the scene and arrested on suspicion of

murder.

Neighbors living in and around the Balints’ apartment said they

didn’t know her well and simply described Pamela Balint as “quiet” or

“private.”

Employees at the Starbucks on Main Street knew her a little

better. She was a regular at the store, and stopped by every day to

pick up a large coffee and a pastry.

On one of her last visits to the store, Pamela Balint let her more

humorous side show, as she and an employee made a few jokes about a

customer’s unusual question.

“Two days before it happened ... she came in and we laughed so

hard,” server Trista Madrid recalled.

A man, Madrid said, had asked if Hoopla, a game the store sells,

was “up for grabs,” apparently thinking that since the game had been

placed near the door, it was free.

“I looked at Pam and she looked at me and was like, ‘Oh my gosh,

is this for real?’” Madrid said.

Madrid said Pamela Balint then grabbed random items around the

store and repeatedly asked, “Is this up for grabs?”

Like her neighbors, people at Starbucks recalled Pamela Balint’s

reserved nature, remembering her as a friendly woman, though not one

to give extensive details about her personal life.

“She was kind of quiet, but she would talk to us once in a while

and said ‘Hi,’” assistant manager Julie Moiola said.

“I didn’t even know she lived on 5th Street,” Madrid said.

The apartment the Balints lived in is about a two-minute walk from

Starbucks.

On the night Pamela Balint was killed, Moiola saw the police

arrive while she was on her shift.

“[I] just saw squad cars and a helicopter,” Moiola said.

Though customers continue to pour in for daily doses of coffee and

tea, Madrid said the store will not be the same without Pamela Balint

stopping by.

“We’ll miss her a lot, that’s for sure,” she said.