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THOSE WERE THE DAYS
Janet Hinkle
Tallahassee Magazine
Published: March/April 2000
When he graduated from Florida State University in 1951, Chris Kalfas wanted nothing to do with the restaurant business. He's been working for his father, Jimmy Kalfas, in the family's restaurant, the Silver Slipper, since he was 15 years old.
During high school he washed dishes, cleared tables and seated customers every night. During college, it was every weekend.
"Dad was working too hard; the restaurant business is hard work," he says shaking his head. "I planned on graduating and doing something else."
But when the late Pappa Kalfas offered his son a share of the business, Chris opted to continue a family venture that has survived and thrived for 62 years. And the plans are for Chris' sons, Bill and Jimmy Kalfas, and his grandson Wes Kalfas to make the Silver Slipper a four-generation family business.
"It's the only thing I know anymore," says Kalfas, who celebrated his 70th birthday last August, "and I love the restaurant business."
In these days of fast food, franchises and frequent job changes, Chris Kalfas and his beloved Slipper are anomalies. He, his sons and his grandson continue to honor the old ways, from the trademark private dining rooms to the Kumbak dressing, a secret mixture of tomatoes, cheeses and spices that has been around since the first menu was printed in 1938. And don't get them started on the beef they serve.
NOTHING BUT THE BEST
"We buy Black Angus and nothing but prime," Chris says. "We don't want anything out of Texas because they don't corn feed their cattle like the Midwest does." And unlike many restaurants, the Slipper still ages its beef an extra week to bring out the best flavor possible.
Echoes son Bill: "Texas beef and Iowa beef will both be graded prime, but if we get something from Amarillo, we just send it back."
This knowledge of beef comes from a lifetime of buying, butchering, aging and carving what are by all accounts the finest steaks served in Tallahassee. In the beginning, they arrived on freight trains and were stored in a special cooler at the Middle Florida Ice Company. Today, steaks arrive in trucks that back up to the Slipper's kitchen door.
In the late 1940s, just after World War II, there were only three fine dining restaurants in Tallahassee: the Talquin Inn, Joe's Spaghetti House and the Silver Slipper. The Slipper was a dining and dance place on South Monroe that was begun by Pete Mouches and Emanuel Joanos, grandfather to another Tallahassee restaurant owner, Manny Joanos. Both men were Greeks who had fled their native home of Patmos because it had fallen under Turkish rule.
"Food was scarce; anyone trying to get away from Turk domination left," Chris says. "Uncle Emanuel, he was really my cousin but we called him uncle, well, he was the money man and Pete was the idea man."
AN INNOVATION IN DINING
It was Pete who understood that Tallahassee was first and foremost a political town. He also understood that it was in the Bible belt and that certain things just weren't done in public. He came up with the idea of a restaurant that had small private dining areas with back doors where politicians and others slipped in and slipped out.
"Pete knew that people liked to have a little toddy without being seen by your neighbor," Chris says.
Pappa Kalfas began working as a dishwasher in the restaurant in 1944. He worked his way up to become general manager and by 1947 had bought out all the partners. Growing up in the business, Chris remembers being in awe of the political power brokers who frequented the restaurant. "Where I had come from, we didn't know any governors," he recalls. But through the years he came to know them all.
There was Millard Caldwell: "We used to always go over to the Governor's Mansion because his girls were in school with us. So it was kind of like an open house at the mansion.
And then Fuller Warren came along: "He took the cows off the road. He and my uncle Emanuel were great friends. He would go down to the Capitol and visit with him all the time.
Dan McCarty made quite an impression during his eight-month term of office: "He was very nice," Chris says. "I was just a kid then and I was just so impressed that he was talking to me.
But Chris recalls it was Farris Bryant who really helped bring in the business: ""He didn't care to entertain at the Governor's Mansion so he'd send folks down for us to feed."
Who was the most flamboyant governor? Hands down, it was Claude Kirk.
"Claude was very fascinating. Every Saturday night he and his wife would be at the Slipper and my mother (Frances Kalfas) would be sure to make him a fresh lemon pie. I remember I used to miss my boys on Sunday morning; they'd disappear, and they were just old enough to drive so I didn't know where they went. Finally, I found out one day that a whole bunch of young kids, the ones old enough to drive, would meet the governor at the gas station in front of the mansion and he'd talk to them for hours."
But times have changed.
"This day and age you can't have that anymore ... Too much security. That was a nice era back then. You see less and less of the governors. It's probably too much of a pain to eat with all the security and such.
In addition to politicians and lobbyists who appreciate the anonymity of the private dining rooms, the Kalfases credit their staying power to their family of friends.. "We've been blessed with a hard-core group of regulars," Chris says.
A FAMILY OF FRIENDS
He recalls the names of people who have become their restaurant family: Jane and Earl Bacon, Tom and Jayleen Woods, Stan Tait, Charlie and Betty Hill, Jim Tillman, Bill and Marge Mansfield, Allen and Joan Morris, Carl and Joanne Blackwell, Elizabeth Cox, Dr. Charlotte McGuire. Chris says he could name dozens more.
But it's more than that.
"Stubbornness ... we just won't give up," Chris says. And then he remembers a fact that nearly kept him from the life in the restaurant business some 50 years ago.
"The big thing is the 18-hour days."
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