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US-POLITICS-BIDEN

Springfield Republican

S. Prestley Blake, the elder of two brothers who co-founded the Friendly’s ice cream chain in 1935, parlaying the profits from 5-cent double-dip cones into a sprawling empire of eateries, died Feb. 11 at a hospital in Stuart, Fla. He was 106.

The cause was a gastric blockage, said his wife, Helen Blake.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was still a first-term president when Mr. Blake, then 20, and his brother Curtis, 18 at the time, hung out their proverbial shingle in Springfield, Mass., in the summer of 1935.

They opened their ice cream parlor with a $547 loan from their parents — who wagered that with some industriousness and ingenuity, the two young men could see themselves through the Great Depression — and the conviction that cheap sweets and cheerful service would keep the customers coming.

Taking stock of their competition, which sold a double-dip cone for a dime, the Blake brothers decided to offer the same treat for a nickel. The gambit worked: Their first evening in business, according to the Springfield Republican, the line out the door kept them open until midnight, racking up sales of 552 cones for $27, plus change, in revenue.

It was grueling work, with one brother making ice cream by night and the other scooping it by day. But if the stress wore on them, they aimed never to let it show, promising customers service worthy of the restaurant’s name. (At the time it was known as Friendly; the possessive was added in 1989, by which time the chain was on its second corporate owner.)

“We were friendly guys,” Mr. Blake once told the Palm Beach Post. “We wanted to give the ice cream parlor a happy connotation to it.”

In 1940, they opened a second shop in West Springfield, Mass., adding diner food to the ice cream offerings — hamburgers to start, as well as grilled cheese sandwiches for the many Catholics in the neighborhood who abstained from meat on Fridays. (Ice cream on cereal, a Friendly experiment, proved less popular.)

The Friendly’s milkshake known to generations as the Fribble was originally dubbed the Awful Awful, short, depending on the account, for some combination of awful(ly) big, awful(ly) thick and awful(ly) good. In 1950, Friendly ice cream parlors began offering the take-home ice cream that would later be sold by the gallons in grocery stores.

By the next year, the Blakes had 10 restaurants in Massachusetts and Connecticut, according to <a href="https://www.friendlysrestaurants.com/about/our-story/" title="www.friendlysrestaurants.com">company history</a>, and by 1974, there were 500 locations in New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

As they embarked on their business venture, the brothers flipped a coin to determine who would be president. Curtis prevailed. But as the operation grew, “Pres,” as Mr. Blake was known, became the debt-averse chief executive, focusing on business matters as his brother tended to employee morale.

“We worked very closely for 43 years,” Mr. Blake <a href="https://www.masslive.com/business/2019/05/i-counted-on-him-friendlys-co-founder-s-prestley-blake-recalls-brother-longtime-business-partner-curtis-blake.html" title="www.masslive.com">told the Springfield Republican</a> in 2019, when Curtis Blake died at 102. “I counted on him to make important decisions.”


<i>[Curtis Blake, co-founder of the Friendly’s ice cream chain, dies at 102]</i>


In 1979, the Blakes sold their chain for more than $160 million to Hershey. Under that ownership, the chain grew to include 850 restaurants in 15 states. In 1988, Hershey sold the operation for $375 million to the Tennessee Restaurant Company, which took Friendly’s public in 1997.

In the early 2000s, dissatisfied with the direction of Friendly’s and its dwindling stock price, Mr. Blake purchased a 12 percent stake in the company for $2 million — enough to be its largest shareholder.

“He’s got the fire in his belly,” said Curtis Blake, who did not pursue active involvement in the company and publicly objected to his brother’s battles with the corporate leadership. “He is going to step up and see what he can do. I’m not needed.”

Among other actions, Mr. Blake sued the chief executive, Donald Smith, over what he alleged was improper personal use of a company jet. The Friendly’s board of directors reportedly found no wrongdoing, and an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, a private investment firm, acquired Friendly’s in 2007 for $337 million.

Friendly’s subsequently underwent two rounds of bankruptcy proceedings, first in 2011, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and then last year as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> pandemic ravaged the restaurant industry. Last month, Friendly’s and its remaining 130 locations were sold to Amici Partners Group for a reported $1.9 million.

Nancy Palmieri

Stewart Prestley Blake was born in Jersey City on Nov. 26, 1914. His father became an executive at a clock-making company. His mother, a homemaker, brewed the syrup that was a key ingredient in early iterations of Friendly’s coffee ice cream.

Mr. Blake briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., before going into the ice cream business. The Blake brothers closed their operation when the United States entered World War II, displaying a sign promising that they would reopen “when we win the war.”

They shared their first automobile, a Model A Ford that they bought for $50, and nurtured a lifelong interest in cars. In another diversion, Mr. Blake financed the construction near his home in Somers, Conn., a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate.

Mr. Blake’s marriages to Della Deming and Setsu Matsukata ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 38 years, the former Helen Lindenmeier Davis of Stuart, Fla.; two children from his first marriage, Nancy Yanakakis of Coral Gables, Fla., and Benson Blake of Stonington, Conn.; a stepson from his second marriage, Naotaka Matsukata of Bethesda, Md.; three stepchildren from his third marriage, Paul Davis of Melbourne Beach, Fla., Mark Davis of Concord, Mass., and Susan Abello of Stuart; a sister; 16 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. A stepdaughter from his third marriage, Karen Davis Krzynowek, died in 2005.

Mr. Blake’s philanthropy benefited universities and schools across New England, among other institutions and causes. He was the author, with Alan Farnham, of an autobiography, “A Friendly Life.” He continued dining at Friendly’s until the end of his long life and was partial to the coffee fribble.

Read more <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/">Washington Post obituaries</a></b>

Georgetown University, BA in Italian and English

Emily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Post’s obituaries desk. She writes about extraordinary lives in national and international affairs, science and the arts, sports, culture, and beyond. She previously worked for the Outlook and Local Living sections.

Emily Langer

The Washington Post

Friendly's ice cream co-founder S. Prestley Blake dies at 106

Curtis Blake, S. Prestley Blake

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