Patrick Christensen has only been back on Whidbey Island for a little more than a week, and yet he’s already started out on solid footing.

Christensen has returned to the island to gain support to bring back Chris’ Bakery, a beloved Oak Harbor institution owned by his parents that existed for three decades in the city before it closed in 1998.

Christensen manned a booth at Holland Happening this weekend in downtown to build support and to give the public a taste of what the bakery would have to offer.

One of his most enthusiastic advocates so far is Whidbey Coffee owner Dan Ollis. They are in early discussions about the possibility of Chris’ Bakery supplying baked goods to Whidbey Coffee’s 12 retail centers.

The coffee chain’s newly remodeled Oak Harbor store near the waterfront has been giving drive-through customers free samples of Chris’ Bakery cookies and muffins since Wednesday.

“It’s kind of fun to bring a little history back, and it seemed like a win for us and for Chris’ Bakery,” Ollis said. “We give people a little taste of what was and maybe what could be.”

Christensen, a Class of 1974 Oak Harbor High School graduate, spent 30 years in Oak Harbor, and many of those in his parents’ bakery, before moving to the East Coast in 1998.

“I moved to get out of the bakery business,” Christensen said. “But it never left me.”

Using family recipes from the old bakery, Christensen and business partner Valerie White of Oak Harbor have been baking items by the thousands in a rented kitchen at the Knights of Columbus Council 3361 on Old Goldie Road since Tuesday.

They cooked up old favorites such as chocolate chip and sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls and orange bread and a new item, a chocolate muffin that Christensen calls a mochaccino.

Some of the goods were bound for Whidbey Coffee, while others were put in cold storage for Holland Happening, where they’ll be available by donation, along with “Bring Back Chris’ Bakery” T-shirts.

There also is an online fundraiser that can be accessed on the Chris’ Bakery website at www.chrisbakery.net.

He’s doing all he can to build momentum and financial support to bring back the bakery that was run by his parents Betty and Chris Christensen, who both have passed away.

“It’s a lot of fun to be back on the Rock,” said Christensen, who had been living in Lancaster, Pa., and hadn’t returned to the island since 2006.

Christensen, 60, said he figures it could take at least $150,000 to outfit a kitchen and restart the business yet is optimistic. He’s looking at potential locations. The business’ former site on Pioneer Way is now Perla’s Oriental convenience store.

A lot needs to fall into place for the venture to work but Christensen said he’s all in, hoping it might be only a matter of months before he could start baking again at a rented location.

The idea to bring back the bakery began as innocent discussions over social media in January that took on a life of their own with Christensen getting contacted by Ollis, White and countless others.

“I kept having dreams about baking,” Christensen said. “It was almost like it was in my soul and it had to come out.

“When I agreed to come out here, those dreams stopped.”

Although he opened a coffee shop and a bakery on the East Coast in the early years after leaving Oak Harbor, Christensen more recently had been working as a product representative who sold items at Costcos in four different states.

He hasn’t been involved in the bakery business in 12 years and has had to rebuild his health after suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning at his home nine years ago.

Christensen said it’s nice to be back on familiar ground, encouraged by those who remember the family business that started in Seattle and moved to Oak Harbor.

“That’s what people are so excited about,” White said. “They have their flavor memories.”