The Holen family, the longtime owners and operators of Baked Alaska, have started their Nekst chapter.

The small, to-go brunch corner is located at the foot of 12th Street in the Nekst event space. The couple lease the space just east of where they ran the seafood restaurant for nearly 20 years until the coronavirus pandemic and dining restrictions made the business untenable.

In the six months since Baked Alaska closed, Chris Holen said, he and his wife, Jennifer, have spent more time with their 13-year-old daughter, Ana, than they had during her entire life prior to the pandemic.

“For all these years, the business has dictated our free time,” he said. “And we’d like to have our free time dictate how often we do business.”

When the government lockdown lifted, the couple considered reopening Baked Alaska with reduced capacity but didn’t think the space would work financially. They took a break and moved to Hawaii, teaching cooking classes for a couple of months before returning to the North Coast and thinking about the next chapter.

The Baked Alaska space on Pier 12 is up for lease. The Holens, who started Baked Alaska as a food truck, decided the stripped-down kitchen space at Nekst would provide them the flexibility they desired.

“We need a lot less business to pay the bills than we did” at Baked Alaska, Jennifer Holen said.

Behind the counter in front of customers, Chris Holen whips up a small menu of international breakfast staples he commonly ate during his global journeys as a chef, from the Bamako street sandwich for the capital of Mali to Chinese-style udon breakfast noodles. Jennifer Holen runs the front of house and French-pressed coffee service. Ana Holen runs the restaurant’s social media account while attending eighth grade online.

The Holens said they’re focusing on brunch from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays through Mondays for the time being but could change depending on circumstances. They still run Chef Daddy, an online cooking supply business, and are working on other video projects like Chris Holen’s prospective globe-trotting video series, “Chef Outta Water.”

“It allows us a certain amount of flexibility,” Chris Holen said. “I don’t feel like we’re locked into this waterfront, chowder, fish and chips place.”