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The Goody Shop - Chapel Hill's First Sports Bar
by Charly Mann
During the first 16 years of my life The Goody Shop was a Chapel Hill institution, yet I must confess I do not think I was aware of it during those years. Since starting Chapel Hill Memories ten months ago more than two dozen readers have suggested I write about this long forgotten restaurant. On every occasions I confessed my lack of knowledge, and suggested they were better qualified to write a piece on it, but sadly no one accepted my offer and I have now taken on the task of preserving the memory of this place.
Pete and Spero Dotron on The Goody Shop of Chapel Hill logo
Spero Dorton opened the Goody Shop in 1948 and it was located on the south side of Franklin Street near the Carolina Theater. During the 1950’s it was the most popular place on Franklin Street to hang out at. It sold more beer than any restaurant or bar in town, had incredible cheeseburgers, and almost the only subject for conversation there was UNC Sports. Spero had passion for Carolina basketball and football, and both teams had their dinners there before all home games.
Smoking and enjoying a beer and two beautiful UNC coeds at the Goody Shop in Chapel Hill in 1962
The head waiter at the Goody Shop was large black man named Bozo. He would flip you double or nothing for your bill. If you lost you paid double, if you won he paid your bill. Spero's father, Pete, was the main cook at the restaurant and often dripped ashes from the cigars he smoked into the food. In those days students did not have credit cards, and Spero would allow them to sign a little I.O.U. note called a chit. Many students left UNC owing Spero hundreds of dollars.
UNC students enjoying beer at the Goody Shop in 1955. Note typical student attire of the time and girl to boy ratio.
Tar Heel athletes and coaches were regulars at the Goody Shop. Legendary basketball coaches Frank McGuire and Dean Smith were friends of Spero's and ate there often. A former UNC student, Hal Kushner who is now an ophthalmologist in Florida, remembers Spero was talented at writing comic poetry and that Sports Illustrated even published a couplet he sent in after they did a feature on UNC basketball star Lenny Rosenbluth saying he was overrated. Spero wrote the magazine: “come on Sports Illustrated tell the truth/what have you got against Rosenbluth?”
UNC Basketball coach Frank McGuire in 1953. He was a regular at The Goody Shop.
From the time The Goody Shop first opened in 1948 and throughout its first decade 75% of its sales were in beer, and by far the most popular beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon. Beer was served in bottles which students delighted in peeling the labels off of as they became more intoxicated. By the mid 1960s this trend was reversed and food sales were 80% of their sales and beer only 20%. In the 1950s many students formed drinking clubs that would meet at the Goody Shop after classes to drink beer. Spero said students simply drank more beer in those days because many of them were older and veterans of World War II or the Korean War. The Goody Shop closed every evening at 11 PM, but they had a back room where a poker game was usually played until the wee hours of morning.
We believe this is Bozo who worked at The Goody Shop driving this car in a parade in front of the Tin Can at UNC in 1949
The Goody Shop like many other Chapel Hill cultural landmarks was a causality of the high rents on Franklin Street and the changes of time. By the late 60s when the Goody Shop closed "beer" bars had sprouted up all over downtown, and a restaurant where you could have a beer with fries and a cheeseburger seemed antiquated. After the Goody Shop closed Spero Dorton went into the real estate business in Durham, and Bozo got a job at UNC's Memorial Hospital.
This is a rare 1921 photo of Franklin Street. Note the name of this business is The Goody Shop. I assume Spero Dorton bought this establishment in 1948 and made it into a restaurant.
Comments:
Neal F Rattican
1:55 PM Tue 6/8/2010
Anybody remember The Patio out across 501 from Eastgate? Great place for music and beer by the pitcher. The property got sold and became the site of the Holiday Inn.
Bill Snypes
1:30 PM Wed 5/19/2010
I was a waiter at the Goody Shop in 1967-68, during my sophmone year. I worked lunches during the week and on Sunday. All the waiters were black, except for me and one other guy. We all hustled for tips and hoped that the customers weren't too picky about the food quality or the aging booths and chairs. The building was old even in the 60's and all the grease from all those omlets and burgers had taken a toll as well. I remember waiting on 2 girls and after delivering the food a huge roach climbed on to their table. The both scrambled out of the booth and ran for the door. They actually stopped and paid for the half eaten food. They never said a word to Spiro who was at the cash register. Fun Times.
Every Sunday I would take Spiro's Olds Cutlass and drive Pete, his father, home to Durham after the lunch rush. Pete usually had a cigar and spoke with a heavy Greek accent. He was the fry cook and was quite old. He didn't say much in the restaurant, except to curse under his breath at the waiters and customers that displeased him. On those trips home he would lighten up a bit and talk Carolina sports. After dropping him off I would drive back to the restaurant and give the keys to Spiro. I never knew how I was selected to drive his car.
I only worked at the Goody Shop for that one year. After my sophmore year I got a job at the Record Bar, a much cooler place to work.
Mike Hill
5:18 PM Sat 3/6/2010
Goody Goody says it all. Spero had as much to do with creating the Carolina sports culture as anyone.
Nancy House
12:56 PM Fri 3/5/2010
I especially enjoy reading about the downtown restaurants before my time. Until I started reading your blog I just sort of assumed that the Chapel Hill I now live in is pretty much how it always was.
Hal Kushner
7:20 AM Fri 3/5/2010
Great article!!! And don't forget Spero was Jeff's first cousin....of Jeff's confectioners and bookmaking shop across the street!
That Goody Shop Special Steak was the best value in NC at $2.95 in 1960.
Brad Davis
1:02 PM Thu 3/4/2010
For someone who never went to the Goody Shop you have done a superb job capturing the place. The one thing I would like to add is that Spero Dorton was an incredibly nice person.
Byron Freeman
9:37 AM Thu 3/4/2010
Remember the Goody Shop, Bozo and the Dortons well. Bozo constantly jingled change in his white jacket pocket going around to tables. Bad checks and restaurant credit kept the students afloat in those days with no credit cards.
If you ran out of money you had to put on a suit go to the Bank of CH and apply for a 60 or 90 day note and Mr. Gobble always said no encouragiang you to budget or that you really didn't need it. Always credited the B of CH for keeping CH the quant village it was because they never lent any money to anybody for anything.
Mark White
9:12 AM Thu 3/4/2010
For more than two decades I have tried to recall the name of the man who ran the Goody Shop. Thanks for clearing this up. The Goody Shop was my favorite place in Chapel Hill during my four years at UNC in the early 1950s. Tonight I will have a cold one in honor of Spero and Pete.
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
It wsa Aggie's before it was the Goody Shop.