Friendly's 11th Hour - Former Friendly's (future 7-Eleven #41184) and 7-Eleven #10126 - Melbourne, FL

 

"It'll be interesting to see if anything will ever move into this place and if they'll modify it any, because this place will definitely make for an interesting conversion if left mostly intact." -Albertsons Florida Blog, December 22, 2018

Our starting words are the parting words from when we were last here, when AFB posted a set of photos he took all the way back in 2018. At that time, the building, while a little worn by time, still had some hopes for reuse. Unfortunately, not reuse- but demolition- is in this building's future.

Following it's approval by the zoning board, advertisements went up for prospective franchisees for this site's future tenant- 7-Eleven #41184. While Palm Bay High School is visible in the background of this shot, we're also not far from the Florida Institute of Technology, and along with it, a thorn in their side for some time- 7-Eeven #10126.

This store first shows up in newspapers in 1972, and property records indicate that this building was built all the way back in 1966, so this building is a dinosaur by Central Florida standards. Unfortunately, this store hasn't exactly aged like a fine wine. According to some, the nearby FIT considers this whole corner "blighted", and wants it demolished. It scores a 2.9 on Google Reviews, and the sole Yelp review levies it one star. They bring consistent reports of mismatched prices, short-changing cashiers, and ever-present panhandlers.

But anybody can slander a convenience store, from behind a keyboard. What's the experience like inside?

To put it, in a word: outdated.

A notable feature of this store is this weird little entryway which, whatever purpose it originally served, is now stuffed with random merchandise.

It's a small, old store with a limited selection and wall decor that is likely twice my age.

The coolers, while at least functional and not horrifically leaking, are those ancient, brass-y colored ones that I associate with backroads gas stations found only off obscure highway exits during road trips.

    This store, owing to it's age, is also the increasingly rarely spotted c-store only 7-Eleven, without even a single pump outside. While the lot probably could fit one or two, it sits next to a standard Mobil station, so their omission isn't surprising. Plus, I doubt there was a chance to add them in the seeming 0 renovations it's had since day 1. Other than the 7-Eleven, this building is also home to two smaller shops, consisting of a barber shop and an Asian restaurant.

With that visit to a depressingly decayed operating business over with, let's return to a depressingly decayed former business! Hooray!

Time has not proven kind to this building, and that wear is apparent in the paintjob. What was once a nice, eye pleasing red has been reduced to a patchy, chalky color that's been totally bleached off in many places.

I had far worse luck with interior shots than AFB did, due to a combination of filth covered windows and newly overgrown shubbery blocking my path. However, not much seems to have changed, except a much thicker layer of dust over everything. It's sad that all this is almost certainly destined to become rubble when the building comes down.

This tree looks like it can be CUT!.. I mean... what?

Do you know how much it costs for a good little palm tree like this? It's more than you'd think.

All the shrubs and decorative plants, while again almost certainly depressingly left to become mulch, at least make for some poignant photographs.

This completes our look at a sad former Friendly's, and a dinosaur of a soon-to-be-former 7-Eleven. While the building has increasingly become an eyesore over the years, as paint fades and bushes overgrow, I'm gonna be sad when the wrecking ball finally comes down on this old Friendly's. I associate the chain without nothing but good memories, of family outings and ice cream, and while we still have an operating Friendly's in Indian Harbour Beach, it was nice to have even a crude reminder closer to home.

With that, this has been Cape Kennedy Retail. Until next time.

Live Life With Extra Sprinkles, 'Cause I Wanna Go To Friendly's!

     Hello everyone, and welcome to a new feature here on My Florida Retail! Today I introduce to you "Dining With AFB & Friends". While we've seen some restaurants here on My Florida Retail before, most of the ones covered so far have been abandoned, repurposed, or casually looked at from the outside. While we'll still see plenty of restaurants from those perspectives in the future here on MFR, there are lots of obscure, rare, faltering, or otherwise interesting restaurants that not only would I like to photograph for posterity, but that I'd also like to try the food from too! So that's how Dining with AFB & Friends was born, as myself and the other contributors of the blog (if they ever wish to do something like this) from time to time take you all into the restaurants with us. For our first Dining with AFB & Friends post, we'll stop by a restaurant chain that's made the news this week due to another round of closings being announced...

Friendly's Restaurant #7695

1011 E. Eau Gallie Boulevard, Indian Harbour Beach, FL

     This Friendly's Restaurant opened in 1988, built in the classic Colonial building style of the chain's restaurants in the Northeast at the time (which fit in nicely in New England, but stand out quite a bit here in Florida). Today this Friendly's in Indian Harbour Beach is the last of its kind in Brevard County, as well as one of only three Friendly's Restaurants left in all of Florida (the other two being on International Drive in Orlando and the other in Port St. Lucie).

     "We are open," reads the road sign on this Friendly's Restaurant on the morning of April 11, 2019. Considering how rare an operating Friendly's Restaurant is in Florida these days, in addition to last week's announcement that 23 Friendly's locations in New York and New England would be closing, the employees at this location in Indian Harbour Beach probably want to reassure locals and tourists alike that they aren't seeing things when this Friendly's sign appears on the horizon along Route A1A.

     Friendly's made their way down to Florida sometime in the 1980's I believe, during a time when the company had over 500 locations in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeastern US and was growing rapidly. Friendly's skipped their way down to Florida like many other companies hoping to find success in the sun, that their legacy in the Northeast would resonate with all the transplanted Northerners now calling Florida home. Friendly's continued to build restaurants in Florida into the 2000's, when the chain began entering its period of decline. It seemed like most major cities in Florida had a Friendly's at one time, so there were a decent number of them down here at one point. While I don't have an exact count of how many Friendly's in total operated in Florida, I can say that Brevard County had either 4 or 5 Friendly's of its own at one time (including the location we'll be seeing today in Indian Harbour Beach, as well as former locations in Melbourne, Melbourne Square Mall, Merritt Island, and possibly one at Searstown Mall in Titusville, however I couldn't confirm if that Titusville one ever opened or not). Taking that into consideration, I'd have to guess there were at least 30-40 Friendly's in Florida at the company's peak. 

     Anyway, while some of these Friendly's locations closed in the early 2000's or even before that, the company expedited closures as the 2010's began, many of these closings triggered by Friendly's bankruptcy in October 2011. Other closure waves trickled out after that, bringing the company to where it is today. While Florida was always an isolated market for Friendly's (the next closest locations appearing in Myrtle Beach, SC), the three random Friendly's left down here after years of shrinking are even more of an anomaly, all clustered in East Central Florida and fairly out of the way from the next closest cluster of Friendly's Restaurants. (Which is a situation that sounds quite similar to one that a certain supermarket chain tried to pull off a few years ago, doesn't it?)

     With news of those recent Friendly's closures floating around, in addition to just recently realizing that out of Friendly's 174 remaining locations, only three of them are in Florida, I made a note in my mind to try to patronize my local Friendly's at some point soon. I figured today would be a good of a day as any to visit Friendly's, especially after browsing their menu online and noticing some $5 weekday breakfast specials that sounded like a good deal. Hungry and ready to go, I took a nice morning ride up A1A for some Friendly's for the first time in many years...

      In addition to the photos I took in April 2019, I also have a few photos I took of this Friendly's location a few years ago. I posted these old photos to flickr, which I believe I left on there when I started to delete content to conform to the new uploading restrictions. Three years ago, instead of a plea that this restaurant was still open, the message on the signboard featured a little play on a famous political slogan going around as the election of 2016 neared.

     Moving away from the road sign, here's our first look at the building itself. This is the classic Friendly's building style, modeled after the Colonial architecture common in the New England area. The entrance into the restaurant is located under the red awning.

     Here's another view of the front of the restaurant. This Friendly's doesn't have any signage whatsoever on the front of the building, opting instead to place signs on each of the sides.

     Turning our attention to the left side of the building, here's one of those signs I mentioned. This particular sign faces Route A1A, as does the main road sign. When I took this photo a few years ago, everything looked good over here...

     ...however, a few hurricanes later, Friendly's has been reduced to nothing more than "riendly" now. The last hurricane to have any impact on this area was Hurricane Irma in 2017, so that's how long this sign has been broken like this. There's also the off chance a passing storm could have done this damage, but it's pretty rare for a passing strong thunderstorm to whip signs around so much to where they begin to fall apart like this.

     Anyway, on this side of the building we also see the now closed off drive-thru window, visible where that brick wall jumps out from the rest of the building. At one time you could order ice cream at that window, but it looks like it's been a long time since that was possible here. I think some Friendly's still offer drive-thru windows according to the website though.

     Moving around to the right side of the building, we see the other sign, which is still fully intact. Those arched windows look into the main dining room, which we'll see in just a moment.

     Here's a look at the front right corner of the building, the main entrance located just behind those bushes and palm trees. This building was looking a bit rough around the edges, not only because of the broken sign on the other side, but also due to the missing brick on this corner of the building. I don't know how that brick went missing, but the wooden framing of the building became exposed when the brick came down. While the outside of the building was looking a bit rough, I discovered looking through county records that Friendly's actually renewed their lease at this location. The original lease on this building expired in 2017 according to records. I couldn't find a copy of the new lease to see how long the term is, but for Friendly's to renew, I guess this place does decent business. Being right across the street from the beach in an area with a decent amount of tourists probably helps this location. Not only that, but ice cream is always nice after a day at the beach 😀

     Stepping inside the restaurant, this is the view we see. Like most Friendly's, to the left when you enter is a small counter where you can order ice cream, and to the right is a cooler with prepackaged cartons of ice cream and ice cream treats for purchase. I didn't get a picture of the counter to the left (as a bunch of waitresses and cooks were hanging out behind it), but it was identical to this one.

     I didn't actually eat my food in the restaurant itself, opting instead to order my food online and pick it up to go. However, as I waited for the cooks to finish preparing my order, I was able to get this picture looking into the dining room. It doesn't look like much has been updated in the dining room since this place opened in 1988, but the building looks much better maintained on the inside than it does from the outside. I personally don't care if the furnishings are old, just as long as they're clean! Friendly's also had all of their Easter decorations out too, some of which you can see up on that shelf along the restaurant's back wall.

     Now that we've seen the restaurant itself, it's time to eat! For my late breakfast today, I ordered the vegetable omelet with home fries and wheat toast. Since Friendly's takes 50% off select breakfast entrees during the week, I got all of this for only $5 plus tax - a great deal I must say. The omelet was very good too. Friendly's didn't skimp on the vegetables in the omelet either, with plenty of mushrooms, peppers, onions, and tomatoes cooked into the egg, as well as garnished with more vegetables on top. It was a very filling breakfast, and well worth $5. One of these days I'll have to try the lunch menu, as there were some good lunch specials I saw online too. I hope the Indian Harbour Beach Friendly's sticks around for a while, as I was quite happy with my breakfast!

     As I said before, the Indian Harbour Beach Friendly's is located directly across the street from the beach. It was a nice day so I hopped across the street to Canova Beach to see what was going on over here, as well as grab a few photos to include with this post.

     With temperatures hitting 90 degrees for the first time in 2019 this week, the beach had a bit of a crowd for a Thursday morning. Come this weekend, there will be people everywhere here!

     So I hope you guys liked this new feature. This isn't going to be a common one (at least from me - I don't know if any of the others will pick up this feature up more often), but I might do a Dining with AFB & Friends every once and a while to keep things interesting.

     Anyway, that's all I have for now. I'm slowly progressing on getting the next portion of the Melbourne Sears closing series ready, so hopefully that will be coming up before too long!

Until the next post,

AFB

I Don't Wanna Go To Friendly's! - Former Friendly's Restaurant - Melbourne, FL

Friendly's Restaurant and Ice Cream #7692

3998 S. Babcock St. Melbourne, FL

     This Friendly's Restaurant opened in 1987. Friendly's closed this restaurant in October 2011 with 62 other locations around the country as Friendly's was preparing to enter bankruptcy. Still as of December 2018, this restaurant continues to sit abandoned.

     You won't be getting any ice cream here! For this My Florida Retail post, we're going to take a look at an abandoned restaurant which has been sitting empty for a little over 7 years now. This former Friendly's sits on an outparcel of a former Walmart that relocated to a new Supercenter in 1994 (which is now offices for Northrup Grumman, and has been stripped of all interesting Walmart features in case you were wondering). The abandoned Friendly's is also the neighbor to Brevard County's only remaining Hardee's restaurant too. I've always liked how the colonial style architecture stood out from all the other boring restaurant buildings in the area, as architecture like this is not very commonplace in Florida (and as Raymie Humbert described it, "From this angle it looks like an LDS meetinghouse..."). This part of town has become a death sentence for most restaurant chains over the years, and is only a few blocks from Palm Bay's restaurant death row (featured on my flickr page quite a long time ago now! Start at the link provided and go through the "Chinese Checkers" to look at some of the interesting abandoned and repurposed restaurants that once lined Palm Bay Road). As far as sit down restaurants go, this place was pretty isolated from any others in the area, so I guess its death was inevitable (especially as a location of a chain that's had some recent financial troubles). However, it was interesting exploring this place, and I got some really good photos to share with you in this post!

     We'll continue our tour of this abandoned restaurant by moving onto the right side of the building, which housed the dining area. Someone is still taking care of this place too. The plants and shrubbery are still neatly trimmed and maintained and there wasn't much garbage strewn around, unlike some other abandoned places I've been to.

     Moving back up front, here's a photo of the front of the building and the entryway. It looks like there was once an awning above the door that must have blown away in a storm, since only a metal frame remains. I also like the little cupola on the roof. It reminds me of something you would see on an old Centennial A&P, although in these parts, a cupola is nothing more than a fancy lightening rod!

     The poorly whited out road sign, which is still clearly readable as you drive by on Babcock St.

     Someone smashed in the walk up ice cream window on the left side of the building, leaving this board to cover the hole. The inside of this place had lots of smashed glass all over (which you'll see when I start posting the interior photos), but this was the only boarded-up window present, so this damage must have been recent. 

     The left side of the building. The way this side of the building was designed gives you the impression that there was supposed to be a drive thru here, but I'm pretty sure there never was. The walk-up ice cream window was behind that part of the building with the window that sticks out in the background, but unless you had unusually long arms, there's no way you could reach it from your car!

     Some of the equipment on the back of the building. As l_dawg2000 said, "I can't believe scrappers haven't swiped that condenser unit. It wouldn't have lasted more than a week after the place closed in most of the 'hoods of Memphis!" I actually thought the same thing when I was here. There's a notorious homeless camp across the road from this restaurant, and a scrapyard less than a mile away, so all of this equipment could have made for an easy snatch for someone.

     The walkway on the right side of the building is pictured here.

     Now for some interior photos from this Friendly's, home of the not-so-happy ending sundae. This is the ice cream bar that you see to your left as you would first walk in. This area was set up like an old school ice cream parlor, with stools along the counter where you could sit and order your ice cream if you didn't want a full meal. And as I keep staring at that picture of cookies and ice cream as I type this, it's really making me want some right now!

     Pictured here is a similar scene as the previous photo, however this one shows all the smashed glass on the floor from previous attempts to break in. I wonder if that random power strip was the object used to smash in the window. If you held it by the cord and really whipped it hard enough a few times you just might generate enough force to smash the glass (although I'm not suggesting that anybody go and try this!).

     Looking further down the ice cream bar, we see that all of the fixtures are still in here. Most of the fixtures, however, got piled up behind the counter in a giant heap, which you can see here. 

     This is the view looking through the front door and into the dining area. Everything is still intact in here, including the Coke machine still in place at the entry to the kitchen. All that's missing are a few customers and some food!

     Another view into the dining room, and also a glimpse back into the kitchen.

     From this viewpoint, we are looking from behind the ice cream bar and into the kitchen, which is now more furniture storage.

     Returning outside for a view of the back and the side of the restaurant.

    Here's a closeup of the front of the building. If you look closely at the white peaked roofline, you can still see the labelscar left from Friendly's script/curly (I don't know what to call it) F logo.

     And one final front view to wrap up my photos of the former Melbourne Friendly's. I just like all of the odd architectural features of this place. It'll be interesting to see if anything will ever move into this place and if they'll modify it any, because this place will definitely make for an interesting conversion if left mostly intact.

So until the next post,

AFB