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Goody Goody in 1932 |
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Although most longtime Tampa residents
associate the Goody Goody with the Stayer family and its Florida Ave. location,
the restaurant's Tampa start was actually on what is now Kennedy Blvd, with an
earlier owner. Ralph A. Stephens began the drive-in as a barbecue
stand in 1925 at 1629 Grand Central Avenue at Rome Avenue.
Above and below: The original Goody
Goody on Grand Central Ave (now Kennedy Blvd). Notice the sign
pained on the building, "Goody Goody Barbeque No. 2" |
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All the carhops back then
were male. Stephens had another unit going within a year or two on
North Florida Avenue, near Hillsborough Avenue. But in 1929, he and
his wife apparently had the roving spirit, because he answered a
classified ad. The ad was placed by William Bechtel Stayer, who had
been a successful lumber insurance man as well as executive director of a
lumber dealers association in Pittsburgh. |
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THE RALPH STEPHENS STORY and
GOODY GOODY "No. 1"
It was in the early 1920s that Ralph Stephens took his first
shot at the restaurant business, opening first at NW 4th and
Olie in Oklahoma City, and then later at Main and Broadway.
Competition and a lot of debt led him to leave Oklahoma City in
1923 with his wife, Amanda, sons Vince and Bob, and daughter
Dolores.The family moved
to Dallas where Stephens later said he saw “a pig stand with
what looked like a thousand cars around it.” Indeed,
Dallas was where the very first pig stand (forerunners to
drive-through restaurants), Kirby’s, had opened in 1921.
Stephens was hired by one of
the Dallas pig stand chains and learned the operation in Dallas
before setting out to open a stand in Little Rock. Before doing
this, Stephens took his family to his wife’s family house in
Hannibal, MO, and while visiting with his father-in-law, he
decided it made more sense to open their own business rather
than work for someone else.
Construction started on the
Stephens' family business, and the family “slept in the stand”
while it was being built. In June of 1925, Goody-Goody
Barbeque in Hannibal, MO, opened for business. Business
initially boomed, but the crowds disappeared once cold weather
settled in. Once again, Stephens was a failed
restaurateur.
 “We
closed, and being sort of soldiers in fortune, we took off for
Florida,” Stephens explained in a 1968 interview. “The land boom
was on then and we went to Tampa and opened one restaurant, then
another. They had told us there were no rooms in Tampa so we
bought a tent and slept under that until we almost flooded out.”
The crash of 1929 once again
killed Stephens’ short-lived success story and it was then that
he sold the business to William Stayer. The Stephens family
returned to Oklahoma City with Ralph determined to settle his
debts and prove he could be a successful restaurant operator.
He went on to establish "Delores Restaurant," named for his
daughter.
The Ralph Stephens story and
photo comes from
http://www.doloresrestaurant.com where you can read more
about the Stephens family and the years after Tampa.
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When
William Stayer's second marriage failed, he bought a grove and spent a
winter in Winter Haven. After a move back to Lakeland, he felt the itch to
get back into business. As son Carl Stayer wrote in a reminiscence years
later, "Dad didn't have enough to do. He traveled over to Tampa
frequently to eat dinner in the great Spanish restaurants and drink in the
bars.."
W.
B. Stayer's ad read: "Have $10,000 to invest, would like to buy a
small business." He got lots of replies, many came from barbeque
stands caught in the economic collapse of the late 1920's. Daughter Betty
Stayer Hendryson, who lives in Albuquerque, NM, said her father
had vowed not to buy a barbeque stand, but did anyway. Ralph Stephens' Goody Goody
appealed to him. Married by then to a former nurse in Lakeland, Stayer
moved his family to Tampa and became a restaurant operator. "He could
not do short-order cooking, run the cash register or wash the dishes," Carl
Stayer wrote.
William B. Stayer
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"What
he did might be called maitre d' in a class restaurant and public
relations officer in a large corporation. W. B. Stayer monitored
the drive-in section and met the customers. A gregarious sort, he had a
personality described as "dignified and infectious." He sold
himself and his business wherever he went. |
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 "It
was a humble business, but he raised the restaurant up.." Carl Stayer
said. In the early 1930's, Stayer pulled back after starting a branch in
Jacksonville. He consolidated his Tampa operations at a new downtown
location. Despite the depression gripping the country, the Goody Goody
"clicked" at 1119 Florida Avenue. Stayer capitalized on his
assets: recipes that customers liked and employees who performed their job
well. In addition to Annabelle Johnson, there was legendary butcher,
Nathaniel Wilson, remembered by his nickname "Peanuts." He
bought beef quarters and ground them up, adding just the right amount of fat to
make mouth-watering hamburgers. Although "Barbeque" stayed on
the signs and on the menu for years, the Goody made its reputation with its
hamburgers--liberally doused with barbeque sauce--and its pies. The sauce
and pie recipes were closely guarded secrets.
Carl Stayer
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Click
to enlarge images
Circa
1960s
June
1995
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Stayer
family life gravitated around 1119 Florida Avenue. For Betty Stayer
Hendryson, it was a great place to bring her high school friends after a
dance. Sometimes the tab shot as high as $2.50, which she charged to her
dad. But he soon ordered her to "cease and desist!" |
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Sons
Bill and Bob Stayer got involved n the business--with Bob, the youngest,
becoming his father's mainstay in the day-to-day operation. Another son,
Glenn, became a doctor in Birmingham, Alabama. But Bob Stayer, a popular
young man, died in a tragic drowning accident about 1945. Only after that
did eldest son Carl, leave his job with GMAC in Harrisburg, PA, bring his
family to Tampa and take over the business. Meanwhile, his father and his
wife had bought a farm at Palm River around 1940. It was an older dairy
farm, with milk cows, and he raised sugar cane.
At
that time, youngsters Elizabeth and Peter New--Betty's children--came to live
with their grandparents on the farm. Elizabeth New Weld, who lived there
when she was 2 years old until she was 6, remembers getting bathed and dressed
every afternoon for the trip to the Goody Goody.
Feb 24, 1941 - Inside the Goody Goody
Goody Goody in 1941
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After
she and her brother ate supper in the restaurant, they would entertain
themselves, waiting with their grandmother while their grandfather went off to
play cards at the Elks Club. Although she was tiny at the time, she
remembers the employees. "The waitresses always seemed so
wonderful," Weld said. "They were so good to us, and they were
wonderful looking women. They had a certain snappy talk, always
cheerful." She also recalls the managers--Lionel "Cicero"
Roberts, William Mote and Milt Gaston.
Gaston,
(86 at the time of this article) and living in Bradenton, is the oldest former
ball player for the Boston Red Sox. He managed the Goody Goody for a
number of years before becoming a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy.
Mote, 66, recalls that there were big signs posted when he came to work in
1941: "No Tips, Please." The carhops were still young men,
and the going salary was 20 cents per hour.
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 During
World War II, the male carhops were replaced by women. (The above
narrative comes from the newspaper article which is framed and hanging in the
Goody Goody.) |
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AHH!
THOSE GOOD-LOOKING GOODY GOODY GIRLS!
Just
a chance to flirt with a bevy of pretty car-hops was enough to draw the guys to
The
Goody
Goody at 1119-21 Florida Ave. in the glory days before and after World War II.
But the food - especially
those delicious pies-was the best in town. The popular restaurant
was
family-owned from 1929 when William B. Stayer bought the place until it was
closed
in May
1984. A few months later, in January 1985, one of the long-time Goody
Goody girls, Yvonne
Freeman, reopened the landmark. This photo was
taken
about 1945.
Photo
from HAMPTON DUNN COLLECTION
From
"Tampa pastimes: Those good-looking Goody Goody girls." Sunland
Tribune 15/1 (November 1989):
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Notice
in the photo at top of page that the front of the restaurant is set back from
the street. The dining area was expanded at some time towards Florida
Avenue and took up the yard space in the front of the building. In the
attic crawl space above the expanded dining area, can be found the original
front wall with the original sign painted on the wall.
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This
partition marks the original dining area to the left, from the expanded area to
the right. |
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Old Days
