The Chattaway Stayed, and Rain Won't Close the Patio Anymore

"We have to find a way to preserve this," Cullen Mahoney told St. Pete Rising. "There's no other place like this on the south side."

Mahoney said that after someone sent him The Chattaway as a redevelopment site. The pitch was for townhomes or mixed-use retail on the 0.70-acre property at 358 22nd Avenue South. He went the other way. With Ferg's Sports Bar owner Mark Ferguson and Shrimpy's Waterfront owner John John Delladonna, he bought both the restaurant and the land under it. The Chattaway reopened in late September.

A sale like that usually brings a remodel. This one mostly paid for practical fixes. The biggest change on the corner of 4th Street South and 22nd Avenue South is that the courtyard can now stay open in weather that used to close it.

Six months between "closing" and "open"

For most of 2026 the outcome was in doubt. Here is the sequence as local outlets reported it:

1. March 17: St. Pete Rising reported the closure. The family confirmed it the next day.
2. The original plan: The last meal would be served in mid-July. The property was already under contract, with the transfer expected in early August.
3. June 15: The Tampa Bay Times reported that Mahoney had brought in Ferguson and Delladonna to keep the restaurant running. The sale was then expected to close in August.
4. August 17: Co-owner Debby Kitto told the Times the handoff would happen by mid-September.
5. August 22 and the next two weekends: The outgoing owners held a customer appreciation yard sale with snacks and $1 drafts. Holiday decorations, knickknacks, teapots and teacups were for sale.
6. Late September: St. Pete Catalyst ran a "reopens today" item dated September 24. St. Pete Rising's full report followed on September 25.

The yard sale says something about the tea room. Jillian Kitto Frers ran The Chattaway for nearly half a century and started The Chattaway Tea Room. In the farewell letter she shared with the Times, she said goodbye to the restaurant. Some of the teacups went home with customers. The new owners plan to put the room itself to more regular use, as the next section explains.

Almost every upgrade solves the same problem

St. Pete Rising listed what the new owners have changed and what they still plan to fix. Read together, the list is mostly about keeping the place open more of the time:

• An overhead canopy with fans over the patio. Before, rain could force the restaurant to close. Now the courtyard can keep serving.
• A second outdoor bar, which adds service capacity in the courtyard.
• A full liquor license.
• Planned repairs to the tea room, where the floor has deteriorated. Once that work is done, the room is meant to become a more regularly used dining space. The owners also plan to address aging equipment and safety needs.
• Menu additions that draw on the owners' other restaurants: fresh seafood inspired by Shrimpy's, Ferg's wings, and vegan options.

The canopy matters most. A leafy outdoor courtyard has always been the main draw, and the rain was the courtyard's weak spot. Covering it means more open days without changing the look of the place. Fixing the tea room floor will add indoor seats in the same way.

Some changes are purely cosmetic. A new mural by Doodles by Lu now decorates the front restroom. The bathrooms otherwise stay largely as they were. Merchandise is coming too, including shirts printed with vintage photos from the restaurant's past.

What the owners say they won't touch

The menu keeps its longtime favorites, including the burger Mahoney calls "the holy grail" of The Chattaway experience. He has also talked about the walls:

"We care about every photo that's under polyurethane stuck to the bar. We care about every plaque screwed into the wall. We're keeping it what it is because that's what makes it important to St. Pete."

St. Pete Rising said the group did not set out to make The Chattaway more polished. The goal was to give an aging building the care it needed to keep going. The owners are local. Mahoney lives within walking distance, and Ferguson grew up in Lakewood Estates and remembers biking to The Chattaway as a kid.

Ask three people how old the place is and you may get three answers. A Times photo caption says The Chattaway Drive-In opened in 1921. St. Pete Rising dates the building to a 1922 grocery and says it became the Chattaway Drive-In after Prohibition ended in 1933. The family era began in 1951, when Helen Lund bought the business, which already had its name. Any of those dates puts the corner close to a century old. St. Pete Rising calls it the city's longest-running restaurant.

In the end, the building stayed because a private buyer chose to keep it.

The corner sits on Old Southeast's western edge

The Old Southeast Neighborhood Association describes the neighborhood as running from Lassing Park on the east to 4th Street South on the west. The Chattaway sits right on that western line, at 4th Street South and 22nd Avenue South. OSNA lists it as one of a few local favorites within walking distance in a mostly residential neighborhood of about 500 homes. The other two on the list are Old Southeast Market at 3rd Street South and 17th Avenue South, and the roughly 20 artist studios in the neighborhood's Artist Enclave.

That list is short, and it explains why the 0.70-acre lot mattered. A neighborhood with few places to eat out could have lost one of its main ones to townhomes. It kept the restaurant, and the restaurant now has more covered seating.

The other edge: Lassing Park

The OSNA map has an anchor on each side. Walk east from 22nd Avenue South, past the brick streets and hex block sidewalks the association describes, and you reach Lassing Park. It covers 12.5 acres on the bay. Judge Robert B. Lassing donated the land to the city in 1924 on the promise that it would always be used for public recreation.

Lassing Park has also had an infrastructure upgrade, and it is finished. According to the city's resilience overview, the City and Parks & Recreation worked with Tampa Bay Watch to build a living shoreline. It stabilizes about 700 feet of badly eroding waterfront with oyster reefs and coastal wetland plants, roughly 100 tons of fossilized shell, and 792 reef balls. An older city announcement projected completion in spring 2023. In May 2026, an Old Southeast and VFW cleanup day at the park celebrated the shoreline as successfully in place.

The two ends of the neighborhood have something in common. On the bay side, oyster reef keeps the shoreline from washing away. On the 4th Street side, a fan-cooled canopy keeps rain from closing the courtyard. Both projects aimed to keep an old place in use, not to rebuild it.

Before you walk over

• Check the hours before you go. The hours on The Chattaway's contact page date from before the ownership change, so call or check before you head over.
• Ask about the tea room. The floor repairs are planned work, so how often the room is open for dining may change over the fall.
• Pair it with the Pier. I Love the Burg lists a free pumpkin patch at the St. Pete Pier from October 8 to 25 and a costumed dog parade on October 24 from 4 to 8 p.m.

The Chattaway's lot was close to becoming townhomes this year. Old Southeast still has its corner restaurant, and it now has a covered patio. If you'd like to talk about what changes like this mean for a home near 4th Street South or Lassing Park, Nanette Counselman knows this side of the neighborhood well, burger order included. Let's Connect.