Two local restaurateurs and a real estate investor are purchasing The Chattaway for $1.8 million. The 75-year-old restaurant will remain mostly unchanged. (Photo courtesy of the City of St. Petersburg) 

Mark Ferguson didn’t want to see The Chattaway, a South St. Petersburg staple since 1951, meet a wrecking ball. So, he joined a new ownership group that will maintain the city’s longest-running restaurant.

Ferguson, owner of Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill, and a group of local investors will purchase the property for $1.8 million. He expects the sale to close on Aug. 4.

“The place has been there for 75 years - I don’t want to see it become townhouses or anything else,” Ferguson said. “I thought it was important to buy it, make it better, and have a place where St. Pete residents can go for the next 75 years.”

Mark Ferguson, owner of Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill. (Photo by Mark Parker / Power Broker Magazine)

Ferguson partnered with developer Cullen Mahoney and John John Delladonna, owner of Shrimpy’s Waterfront on St. Pete Beach, to purchase the property at 358 22nd Ave. S. The same family that has owned The Chattaway since 1951 announced they were “done” in March.

However, Ferguson noted that the restaurant was for sale for approximately a year. “I was looking at buying it, and I just drug my feet,” he said.

Mahoney didn’t want to demolish the building, which opened in 1921 and initially housed a general store, but was unsure of what to do with the property, Ferguson explained. The two eventually made a deal and brought in Delladonna.

While the group will now offer more seafood, Ferguson said most everything else will remain unchanged at The Chattaway. “The same name, the same burgers and stuff - we’re just going to improve the property.”

​“It’s a community asset,” Ferguson added. “We want to honor the family that has been there for 75 years, and we want to keep it a St. Pete staple.”

Jillian Frers, 93, became co-owner in the late 1970s when her then-husband, the late Everett Lund, purchased the restaurant from his mother. She has operated The Chattaway with her son, Greg Kitto, and daughters ever since.

Ferguson, a Lakewood High School alum, was raised nearby in South St. Pete. He also spent nearly two decades teaching at Southside Fundamental Middle School, now Midtown Academy, about a mile away from the Chattaway.

“Greg (Kitto) and I grew up together,” Ferguson said. “He just wants to retire. Just come back and say hi … he wants to welcome people.”

The Chattaway is known for its eclectic, vibrant courtyard and burgers. (Photo courtesy of The Chattaway)

The building’s pink-and-green paint job will remain, as will its quirky outdoor courtyard with dozens of planters fashioned out of old bathtubs. “We want to keep this a nice, quaint little place, where everybody knows your name,” Ferguson said.

His sports bar opened 34 years ago, and Ferguson noted the importance of preserving an establishment’s identity while also ensuring it can survive in a rapidly evolving city. The Chattaway’s new owners will install a point-of-sale system and are applying for a liquor license.

Some renovations are likely, “but we’re not sure until we get in there and take over,” Ferguson said. His group plans to host a grand reopening celebration in late August.

When asked what he would say to residents fretting over The Chattaway’s future, Ferguson said they could “sit easy - we’re going to keep it the same thing it is and make it better for a long time to come.”  

“And it’s because of them that we’re keeping it,” he continued. “We had so many people reach out to us and say, ‘Please save The Chattaway.’”

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