My trip to Goody Goody
A long lasting indie restaurant is a rare thing in a lot of towns. Tampa has one called Goody Goody that has been in business in the same location since the 20′s which is long enough to make it an institution but not technically the oldest. It’s a bit out of the way from me and I have never been there, but word broke recently that it will be closing at the end of the month. Ever since I have tried to make the pilgrimage and it has been a harrowing experience. For reference, this is a classic American diner type place, their signature dish is a hamburger.
After finding someone to go we made plans for lunch on the next day. I picked him up right around noon and we made our way over there (which is just a few minutes from his place) only to find about 40 people packed into a very small dining room. It was obvious that we were in for a long wait to just get a table so after a few minutes of scoping out we left discouraged but not beaten.
Today was round two and we played this match with a later time and more confidence. Around 1PM we strolled in (this time with another person, maybe for good luck) and found nearly as big a crowd. After about 20 minutes we had a table but found out that it would be, “A hell of a long wait” before getting food. Literally two hours. This explained why we were the youngest people in the place by at least 25 years–you have to be retired to be able to wait for the food.
We haven’t scheduled round three, but we are determined to get to Goody Goody and eat before the end of the month. If people wait hours for a hamburger it must be good. Our gameplan for round three is to go early, beating out the lunch crowd. I’ll probably have to wake up at 5AM to be in the mood for a cheeseburger by 10AM, but that’s what I get for slacking around and not going until now.
(I just calculated that if we are able to eat at Goody Goody on our third trip I will have driven around 100 miles and used ~$11 of gasoline. That’s not to mention the time spent driving and waiting. Quite a voyage!)
Perhaps if more people had not waited until the last days to eat at Goody Goody, it would still be around. Unfortunately it was talked about, but not visited. I have gone at least once a week for years and never were all tables taken. It’s a shame that the place had to close down before getting the recognition it truly deserved. I would gladly wait 2 hours to, once again, have one of there hamburgers and a slice of butterscotch pie.
Bob and Mary Reid were the original owners of the Goody Goody restaurants. The first was opened on Third Street in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1920s. In 1923 they constructed a second location on Salem Avenue. And shortly after they opened the Tampa restaurant. They also had a fourth in Santa Monica, California.
Ironically, a few days after the Tampa restaurant closed, Bob Reid died at age 91 and eight days later his wife of 70 years Mary died.
The butterscotch pie seems to be a particular delicacy. Not only is it mentioned in every online posting and newspaper article, my sister asked me if I had the recipe this very day (her birthday)!
I wonder if it was ever published?
I am looking for photos and memerbila from the Salem ave Goody Goody to include on our website. Any ideas?
The Goody Goody Restaurant was started by Ralph Stephens in 1925 and purchased by my grandfather William Bechtel Stayer in 1929. Our family owned and ran the restaurant until 1980 when it was sold to Michael Wheeler. Although Mr. Wheeler owns the sauce recipe, we have a copy in the family and have fun trying to recreate the hamburgers that my cousins and I remember from our childhood.
Why hasn’t anyone marketed the Tampa GOODY GOODY sauce……can it be bought anywhere???
I have the original recipe for the Goody Goody sauce. Mary Reid was my aunt(my mother’s sister) and I recieved the personal contents of their house when they both died in Dec. 2005. It is hand written and starts with 4 cases # 10 tomatoes! I also have items from the Goody Goody. I also have the true history of the Goody Goody and photos of their locations. Perhpas someone out there would be interested! Sue
Hi sue, I am interested in the photos adn recipe. Ic an be reached at 813-248-3000 x23 or via email; r.gonzmart@columbia restaurant.com
thank you. rg
I remember going to Goody Goody in Santa Monica with my mother and sister. I think it was about 1957 or 1958. I can still taste the cream of onion soup. Do you have the recipe for that?
Sue,
I would also be interested in photos of the Santa Monica restaurant. You should also contact Vintage Roadside a website dedicated to memorializing long forgotton roadside restaurants. http://www.vintageroadside.com There was an interesting article about them in today’s Los Angeles Times. They might be interested in Goody Goody.
Pete
I moved from Dayton to Florida in 1973. I have told lots of people here about the great sauce you made for your burgers, and the butterscotch pie. I have eaten at many restaurants in Florida that advertise butterscotch pie, and, or, peanut butter pie, and none of them can compare with the ones I remember at the Goody Goody on Salem Av., I believe. I would give nearly anything to get some of that sauce and that pie. Please let me know if this is possible, please. I was with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at the time. Thank you, Ken Umpenhour, srgtump@tampabay.rr.com
Yes Sue, I am looking for items to include on our class website. All of Fairview spent manny happy hours at the Goody. Please contact me at our website http://www.fairview58.org ,, Thanks, Tom
To Sue Koehl…
If the Goody Goody you mentioned in your Feb 27 posting is the Santa Monica site on Berkley & Wilshire, I would be very interested in any photos and info you may have. Would you consider emailing photos, or are you offering them only for sale?
I lived within very easy walking distance from the Santa monica site and ate there quite frequently in the late ’50′s and early ’60′s.
Please contact me at 1501atw@charter.net
Thanks….
Pat.
I used to go to Goody Goody’s with my grandparents and brother back in the late 30′s and early 40′s. It was such a treat to get our food served on the trays attached to the windows. We had their hamburgers, hotdogs and always butterscotch pie. Such great memories. Later when I was living in Chicago and we came to Florida on vacation with my two children we always stopped by to buy the pie. Sometimes when I was only with my husband we would bring back the famous butterscotch pies on the plane. We have tried to make the pie with a recipe that is supposed to be the original one but somehow it isn’t the same. Tampa has changed so much.
Back in the late forties and early fifties, I was in Fairview HS which was a few blocks from the Goody’s in Dayton, Ohio. It was a regular “hangout” in those years. My first date with my present wife, Anita Shannon Leland, was at Goody’s. Somebody sent me a recipe for the hanburger sauce recently which caused me to Google the Goody’s name. I’m not sure how accurate the recipe is and I haven’t tried it yet. Anyway, thanks for the information about an old Dayton icon.
Goody Goody Hamburger sauce
1 stick butter
3 15 oz. cans whole peeled tomatoes(cut up the tomatoes)
1 tblsp. celery seed
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tblsp. pepper
1 tblsp salt
2 small onions, chopped fine
Optional: add a little sugar and cut the salt in half.
Add all of the ingredients together in a sauce pan and cook on low heat for about 3-4 hours. If you double the recipe, cook for 5-6 hours.
Fry hamburgers (thin) and toast or broil buns with butter on them.
Top hamburgers with sauce, sliced hamburger, dills and mayo(optional)
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Goody’s Onion Soup
1 Bermuda Onion, chopped finely
3 Tablespoons of Butter, divided
2 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 Cup whole milk
1 13 3/4 oz can chicken broth
Croutons and Grated Parmesan Cheese
Saute onion in 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Butter until transparent. Set aside. In another pan make a white sauce by melting remaining butter. Stir in cornstarch with a wire whisk and add milk. Continue stirring and cooking until sauce thickens. Add chicken broth and onions. Serve plain or with homemade croutons and parmesan cheese.
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MORE MEMORIES:
The late 50s and 60s were a wonderful time to be growing up in Dayton View. An age of pure innocence. THE place to go for us Colonel White HS (YEA! City football championships 1960) and Fairview (BOO!) students on any given weekend after a football or basketball game or with your date after a movie (Da-Vue theater, later displaced by Good Samaritan staff doctors’ offices, was the preferred ESCAPE for “youts” equipped with butts capable of and minds eager to watch coming attractions, newsreels, cartoons & wonderful DOUBLE-FEATURES, thus effectively giving our poor parents a PAROLE lasting the better part of a Saturday), was Goody Goody’s. There was ALWAYS a line to get in – it wasn’t a large place – 20 or 25 tables, MAX. If you didn’t want carry-out, (WHO DID…you were there to eat AND BE SEEN,)you waited by the fish-tank to be seated, looking to see which friends were already there, and guarded by Howard, the stern manager and teen-WRANGLER who manned the gateway to heaven on earth and made sure decorum was maintained. My standing order was a cheeseburger, with special sauce, shoe-strings (french-fries)with gravy and a root beer freeze. An E-Z way for dessert. For those uninitiated, the latter was a slice of chocolate pan cake or brownie, with vanilla ice cream and soaked in chocolate sauce- instant tooth decay and, with a calorie count immeasurable except with a slide-rule (remember this was BEFORE calculators!), an instant increase of waist-line. OH, THE CALORIES…OH, THE CHOLESTEROL… OH, THE TASTE & THRILL! PURE NIRVANA! That meal was so delicious, the kids from Jullienne and Chaminade had long-ago declared them a VENIAL SIN. A “rent-a-cop” played the role of “outside Howard” for those who stayed in their cars, waiting for the “car-hop” to deliver your order on a tray which would hook onto your car window.
Special family occasions were spent at ANTICOLI’s which had a salad dressing of pure garlic ecstasy and a pasta sauce par excellence of even more garlic. The only defense for the family is that ALL OF US REEKED an equal amount for days after. For my dad’s 65th birthday, I brought a TEN POUND lobster back to Dayton, from where I was living in Mystic, CT. “Clyde” the lobster was hidden in the basement refrigerator, until the celebration, with assorted cousins in attendance. Once Clyde was introduced to his fate, the next problem was HOW to cook the poor victim. A quick call to Gloria, owner of Anticoli’s, provided the solution – they had the only pot LARGE ENOUGH to accommodate Clyde, whose length approached 24 inches! Clyde gave his ALL for almost 20 family members.
VERY special occasions, such as parents’ anniversaries or Mother’s Day, called for higher goals: KING COLE’s downtown. THAT is beyond my mere mortal capabilities to describe. Georgie Rudin’s “Tropics,” south of Delaware & Main St. was very high on our family’s list of cullinary rewards. RUMAKI, anyone? Scandalously named drinks such as the “Vicious Virgin” and “Suffering Bastard” seemed to make everything taste even better.
Miami Hardware, where I worked for the Gerson family through a few years of high school, was across the street from Goody’s, as was Frank’s Poultry, a block North, where the aroma of rotisserie chickens made the thoughts of illicit drug use seem like a poor second choice. You could get a CONTACT HIGH just inhaling deeply in Frank’s! Capons (the Michael Jackson of chickendom) a deep dark brown, dripping juices & meant only for residents of Mount Olympus, was the meal along with cole slaw. There was always a line at Frank’s also. A few doors North of Goody’s was the Vernor’s plant, run by Nate Barbash, which also produced SQUIRT, a lemony soft drink I periodically indulge in even to this day. Another fond memory was the drugstore on the corner of Delaware and Richmond, with their old-fashioned soda fountain, where you could get a NECTAR PHOSPHATE, a not-too-sweet pink, bubbly cure for the hypoglycemic non-drivers who rode their bikes there. Mid-way between home (Harvard Blvd) and the above Upper Dayton View mecca, was HUSSMAN’s, on the corner of Salem & Catalpa. Hussman’s was THE FIRST to offer a 15 cent hamburger before McDonalds has sold their 1st million nationally. Wash down those burgerS (YES…PLURAL! After all, we were in high school and had the appetites of very large Jurassic carnivores) with a root beer served up in thick mugs stored in an ice cream freezer, so the drink froze to the sides. Risk was rife when going to Hussman’s during the week, as it required “cutting out” from the oh-so-mundane fare (eternal sloppy-Joes) served in the school cafeteria. Only inmates from Alcatraz had stricter regulations! At least it seemed that way. RIGHT?!?!?
Now THOSE WERE the “Goody” old days. Thomas Wolf was WRONG…You CAN go home…if only in your mind!
Is that really the sauce recipe? I am going to try it and see.
OMG—Roger,is this you? The reference to Harvard is what did it!! Howd just sent me the same recipe which prompted me to go on line to see if any of the other recipes were available.
Your piece sure brought back memories but you forgot a few: Cassano’s Pizza, for one. I still have them shipped every year at Christmas for my son! And, what about Frisches—their fish sandwiches were the best —after Goody’s, of course. And, don’t forget the Rike’s dining room; to this day, I make their open faced chicken sandwiches.
Hope all is well; this has been fun. ma
Roger, Take a look at our class website http://www.fairview58.org for old memories, I want to put a page on about Goody’s and the other places you mention and am looking for memoribelia. Can you help me? Thanks, Tom
David Burns and Glenda Stayer Wood,
I’m very much interested in the early history of the Tampa Goody Goody. I was around when the GG closed, and was friends with the Wheeler bros Dick & Mike. I have a web page dedicated to the GG with pics that I’ve taken, at http://www.tampapix.com/goodygoody.htm. See page 2 for my historical account so far.
I’ve come across a 1930 photo of the Tampa Goody Goody when it was on Grand Central Ave. (now Kennedy Blvd). The photo is at:
http://digital.hcplc.org/burgert/archive06/5487.jpg
I understand that the GG moved to it’s Florida Ave location around 1930, so I’m assuming this 1930 photo on Grand Central is the original Tampa location. What puzzles me is that this is “Goody Goody No. 2″ as indicated on the building and the caption, which reads: “Goody-Goody Sandwich Shop, (No. 2), 1629 Grand Central Avenue with parked cars under awnings awaiting food service : (Hyde Park)” Was this “No.2″ due to the original Dayton Ohio location and is this the location opened by Ralph Stephens?
Please email me at dano@tampapix.com, I would like to have an accurate early history of the GG in Tampa. Thanks so much. Dan Perez
The Goody Goody on Salem Ave. had the finest butterscotch pie I have ever eaten. Restaurants abound here, Florida, have their version of it, but none compares with the one at the old Goody Goody. Is there any way to get some here in Florida, or the recipe?? That would be great.. Ken Umpenhour