Listening to the scanner on Saturday night, we heard a call for firefighters to check out smoke at the Rainier Yacht Club, and thought, “Isn’t that where the Westenders are having ‘Operation Chano’?” Didn’t hear the followup and forgot about it – till Nicky Ducommun e-mailed tonight to share the event wrapup, with Fuzz Hill‘s photos:

The Westenders Scooter Club’s “Operation Chano” was a great success! Our friend and fellow scooterist, Sean “Chano” Goff, co-owner with wife Sofia of West Seattle’s Cafe Revo, passed away unexpectedly September 17. Operation Chano was launched to raise money to help his family in a time of great need.

For the event Saturday night, our chefs, Corey & Gus were truly the lords of the kitchen, and put out a feast that had attendees going through the buffet line for seconds — and even thirds!! We had so many prizes in the raffle that even with the Westenders Prize Patrol ‘bundling’ prizes into prize packs, it took almost as long to give away the prizes as it did to watch our scooter-themed movie, “Mondo Scooterama”!

One event that caused particular mirth was the unscheduled appearance of the Seattle Fire Department. We had so many pots of water boiling in the kitchen for pasta, that an alert neighbor mistook the fogged up windows and steam escaping from the galley of the Rainier Yacht Club for smoke. The Seattle Fire Department was called and we were all reminded of why firefighter calendars are so popular. The extremely handsome, strapping men who arrived in two fire engines were wonderful, even giving all the children in attendance a tour of their trucks.

We had 50+ guests, and were pleased that about half were non-Westenders. Several clubs were well represented, particularly the Flying Monkeys SC and the F*** Yeah SC from Tacoma.

And this was a generous lot as well! On Sunday, a group of us rode out to Cafe Revo to present them with the proceeds!

Thanks again to everyone who gave so much of their time and resources to make this event a success!

Westenders Scooter Club

This was the second of two fundraisers for the Goff family; the first one was “Big Night” last month at The Sanctuary at Admiral (WSB coverage here). Chef Goff died in late September at age 43; Cafe Revo (a WSB sponsor), however, carries on, with his wife Sofia and its ace staff at the helm, serving the cuisine of Northern Italy in the Luna Park business district.