Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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A Last Visit To Goody Goody

Posted Nov 14, 2005 by Jeff Houck

Updated Nov 14, 2005 at 12:30 PM

Had something of a blog summit on Thursday. I read over at Sticks of Fire that Tommy was going to be supping at Goody Goody so I offered to invade the sanctity of his lunch and he obliged.

Goody Goody is closing in a couple weeks. Seems they’ve sold the land to condo developers for a pretty penny. They might reopen somewhere else, but for now, the former drive-in is planning to shut the doors on Nov. 30.

I met up with Tommy at lunchtime and we had a nice chat over a couple baskets of burgers, fries, onion rings and chocolate shakes.

Yes, we had the special sauce on the burgers. Why go to Goody Goody without trying it, you know?

The fries were crisp. The onion rings were steaming hot. But that was okay. We weren’t really there for the food. It was more to absorb the ambience of another Tampa haunt that’s going by the wayside.

We had to fight off half of The Greatest Generation to get in. The place was packed.

Yvonne Freeman, the 77-year-old manager who has worked there since she was a carhop in the 1940s, said there were no menus to be had. “We had a batch printed up but people have been taking them.”

“I used to come here when I was younger,’’ one elderly woman said as she was waiting in line to pay. She seemed like she was touched by the last chance to eat at the diner.

For more photos from the restaurant, click here.