ENTERTAINMENT

Co-founder of Chuck's Seafood Restaurant in Fort Pierce turns 100 years old | Laurie's Stories

Laurie K. Blandford
Treasure Coast Newspapers
Barbara Blandford (left) and granddaughter Laurie K. Blandford in 2007.

I always wondered how I would honor my grandma on Oct. 21, 2017, what would’ve been her 100th birthday.

Barbara Marguerite Frere Blandford was my hero and favorite person. With both parents working full time, she helped raise me. My biggest fear in life was realized Nov. 26, 2010, when she died at 93.

A day after my first column was published, introducing myself as TCPalm’s entertainment reporter and columnist, I got an email about a Fort Pierce woman who was turning 100 years old Oct. 9.

Even though it’s the ultimate milestone birthday, it's not something I typically would feature in a column.

But this was Mary Elodie Slay Tabor McCready, co-founder of Chuck’s Seafood Restaurant on South Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce that opened in 1961.

Elodie McCready, who turned 100 on Oct. 9, 2017, celebrates her birthday Oct. 8 with friends and family at the restaurant she co-founded, Chuck's Seafood Restaurant, in Fort Pierce. Vicki Buchanan, whose husband, Chuck Buchanan, is McCready's grandson, presents the cake while the crowd sings "Happy Birthday."

Chuck's was my grandma’s favorite restaurant, and it still is mine.

We would go there for every birthday and special occasion and always order their popular fried shrimp. Before I was diagnosed with a shellfish allergy, I would power through the odd feeling I got every time I ate it because their shrimp was that delicious.

FORT PIERCE SPOTS: Chuck's a favorite of food reviewer Melissa Stonesifer

McCready’s family and friends celebrated her 100th birthday Sunday at the restaurant. That’s all she wanted — if she could’ve told me herself — said her grandson, Charles “Chuck” Buchanan.

“Her goal has always been to be 100,” Buchanan said. “Because her mother made it to 99.”

I was shocked to learn McCready was one of nine siblings with seven girls and two boys — exactly like my grandma. The McCready family lived in the historic Seven Gables House.

“As my great-grandfather used to be put it,” Buchanan said, “he had a house built with seven gables for his seven pretty daughters.”

I also couldn’t believe they both were young girls when they moved to Fort Pierce in the 1920s — McCready from Mississippi and my grandma from Kansas.

But that’s where the similarities end. My grandma lost the love of her life and was left to raise two young boys on her own while she worked as a legal secretary for a local judge for more than 40 years.

As a teenager, McCready worked at a little diner on old Seaway Drive before the bridge was built. A merchant marine during World War II named Charles Leonard Tabor sailed into the Port of Fort Pierce on the freighter Betty Weems, the first merchant ship that came into the port.

“Whenever the ship was in town, he would come in and have lunch,” Buchanan said. “Well, they got married (in their early 20s) and moved to Baltimore.”

After the war, Tabor got a job working in the Baltimore shipyards. He originally was from a small crabbing town in Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay, and his family was in the crabbing business.

The couple often would visit McCready's parents in Fort Pierce and finally moved away from the cold and back to her home with their only child, a daughter, Buchanan’s mother. By the time the restaurant opened, he was born.

“To this day, my grandmother says they named it after me,” Buchanan said. “If people ask me how it got its name, I tell them ‘Well, they always told me they named it after me.’”

Elodie McCready, who turned 100 years old Oct. 9, 2017, celebrates her birthday Oct. 8 with friends and family at the restaurant she co-founded, Chuck's Seafood Restaurant in Fort Pierce.

They ran the restaurant as a team. McCready did all the business while Tabor did all the cooking. He also drove to Grant four times a week to pick up fresh seafood.

“He’d sit out on the back dock and peel shrimp and split shrimp for hours,” Buchanan said. “She pushed for the business to be a success. She ran it hard.”

Tabor didn’t have any cooking experience when he opened the restaurant. His grandson said he likely learned from his mother’s cooking when he was growing up.

Buchanan worked every job at the restaurant, except wait tables, for about 11 years on days he was needed in addition to his full-time job.

“I can cook anything in the restaurant that they cook his way because he taught me,” Buchanan said. “It was a family business. Everybody filled in.”

They retired in the 1980s. Despite different owners, Tabor’s recipes — including the famous one for fried shrimp — continue to be used.

Chuck's Seafood Restaurant in Fort Pierce is famous for its fried shrimp.

After Tabor died, McCready married his best friend, Ben “Chris” McCready. The men had worked together in the shipyards, and they and their wives used to vacation together. Chris McCready and his wife continued to take then-Elodie Tabor on vacation after her husband died. The tradition continued after his wife died.

“One year, she calls me and says ‘I got something to tell you,’” Buchanan said. “She goes, ‘Chris is here.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know. I was there the other day.’

“She goes, ‘Well, he’s not leaving anymore.’

“We saw it coming,” Buchanan said. “It was surprising, but then it wasn’t.”

Even after she lost her second husband, McCready continued to work part time at the restaurant until she had a stroke before her 95th birthday.

“Unfortunately, it took her memory,” Buchanan said. “It’s not hard anymore because I’ve accepted it.”

McCready is in great shape physically and still can get around with the help of a walker. She took it easy in a wheelchair for her party.

Her nursing home has become her home, and she loves to play bingo there. Buchanan and his wife visit several times each week, as much as possible.

“She’s just as happy as can be,” Buchanan said. “All we’re concerned with is she’s happy and taken care of.”

I remember seeing McCready in the restaurant. She would always go around the tables, greeting what seemed like her guests.

And she always would come say hello to my grandma. They were old friends.

Our families aren’t sure how they knew each other. But Fort Pierce was an even smaller town when they were young. I wish I could ask them. Both of these women were — and still are — remarkable in their own ways. They’ve made an impact here, big and small.

It’s up to us, grandchildren of the greatest generation, to carry on their legacies in their honor.

Elodie McCready, who turned 100 years old Oct. 9, 2017, raises her signature drink, a Manhattan, as she celebrates her birthday Oct. 8 with friends and family at the restaurant she co-founded, Chuck's Seafood Restaurant in Fort Pierce.

Laurie K. Blandford is #TCPalmSocial’s entertainment reporter and columnist dedicated to adventure and finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Read her weekly column, Laurie's Stories, on TCPalm.com. Follow her on Twitter at @TCPalmLaurie or Facebook at faceboook.com/TCPalmLaurie. Get behind the scenes with TCPalm's Instagram and Snapchat stories.