Jillian Frers, the longtime owner of the Chattaway restaurant in St. Petersburg’s Old Southeast, will be given a Distinguished Citizen Award at Thursday’s City Council meeting.
The Chattaway has been up for sale and is under contract; manager Amanda Kitto, Frers’ daughter, says the last day will most likely be Aug. 3.
“The Chattaway is not only a St. Pete favorite,” said Councilmember Gina Driscoll, “it’s part of what defines our city – a place where neighbors gather, new friends are made, and community is built. The Distinguished Citizen Award honors Jillian’s contributions to our city’s great heritage.”
Frers, 93, has owned or co-owned the 125-year-old establishment since the late 1970s. When her ex-husband Everett Lund died in 2002, she became full owner.
Known for its bright pastel colors and leafy outdoor seating area, with 44 full-sized clawfoot bathtubs potted with plants and flowers, the Chattaway began as a filling station and general store in 1921.
When New York divorcee Helen Lund bought the business in 1951, it was already well into its reputation as a neighborhood watering hole, serving beer and sandwiches, under the Chattaway moniker. There was, for a time, drive-in service.
Along with her son Everett, Helen Lund put in long hours at the Chattaway, adding new things and making renovations as time and budget allowed.
Everett met and married Jillian Kitto, a twice-divorced native of London, in the mid 1970s. They’d appeared together in a Little Theatre of Clearwater production of The Odd Couple; he was gruff-mannered Oscar Madison, while she was cast as Cecily, one of the (very English) Pigeon sisters.
“He was my best friend,” Frers recalled in the book Vintage St. Pete & Pinellas Volume 3. “He gets a crush on me, and he’s going to take care of me. I’m with six kids and the ex-husband’s not giving me any money. So life becomes difficult.”
In 1981, the couple purchased the property, at the intersection of 4th Street and 22nd Avenue S., from their landlord.
A talented tenor vocalist as well as actor, Lund was known for his skills as a storyteller, orator and comedian.
At least he thought he was funny, Frers said in the Vintage St. Pete interview. He was rude to customers, some of whom thought it was all “part of the act,” and exceptionally nasty to her children, all of whom put in time at the Chattaway.
Amanda Kitto filled in details during the same interview. “You never knew when, or why,” she said. “It was never provoked. It was just your turn. He could do it to us, or to Mom. Well, not so much to Mom. He was sometimes so wonderful, and sometimes such a jerk.”
Jillian remembered drawing a line in the sand. “If you insult one more customer,” she eventually told him, “I’m leaving you.” He did, and she did. “I divorced him for being a prick,” she said (flashing a sly smile).
But they remained friends after the divorce, and continued to run the Chattaway as business partners.
Even after she tied the knot with Lund’s boyhood pal, Warren Frers. “I married his best friend – and he still loved me,” Jillian said. “And he still loved his best friend.” Warren Frers worked as the Chattaway’s host until his death in 2010.
Virtually since the day she entered the picture, Jillian was determined to make the Chattaway just a little classier.
From the St. Petersburg Times, June 2, 1983: Inside, Jill Lund tries to run a New England back-porch dining room, but somehow knotty-pine paneling, curtains and stained glass decorations on the window seem as out of place as egg salad on a lettuce leaf.
In 1999 she began to transform the Chattaway’s unused “game room” into her version of a classic English tea room, complete with appropriate furniture, china, silver, decorations, framed British newspaper clippings and photos of the Royal Family.
“We did it slowly,” she said. “We’d buy one table at a time, and chairs to match.”
In the tea room, the newly-dubbed Lady Chattaway (she made it up, thinking it sounded very English) served English tea with scones, petit fours, crumpets, clotted cream and preserves and finger sandwiches. While the outdoors patrons scarfed up hamburgers, Sloppy Joe’s, beer and sweet tea.
According to Amanda Kitto, it’s possible the Chattaway name will remain, under new ownership. “If the sale goes through, the new owners don’t want to do the tea room any more,” she said. “So my kids and I are going to open our own tea room. We have no date, no place et cetera, but we are going to do that in honor of my mother.”
The Distinguished Citizen Award will be given to Jillian Frers by Councilmember Gina Driscoll Thursday; the Council meeting begins at 3 p.m.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
