Wendy Bayer found these great photos and generously shared them with us. The photos show Big Tom’s Restaurant (or Big Tom’s Drive-In Restaurant), which occupied the southeast corner of North High and East Jeffrey from 1956 – 1959. Big Tom’s was owned by Thos H Fetty, who lived with his wife Ella M. at 353 Clinton St.

Here is Big Tom and his wife Ella’s marriage certificate:

Tom Fetty died in 1995.

Here’s some history on the location, based on the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s collection of business directories:

• –In 1950 the address did not exist.
• –From 1953 until 1956 it was Hi-Jeffrey Sandwich Shop, owned by Pete Freemas. (In April 1954 it was called Hi-Jeffrey Sandwich Shop, presumably for its corner location. By June 1954 it was also called Pete’s Drive-In. Pete passed away from a heart attack in April 1955; here’s his obituary.)
• –From 1956 to 1959 it was Big Tom’s Restaurant. There’s an April 1959 Dispatch article about an attack on “the diner’s operator Donald Acree.”
• –In August 1957, January 1958, and July 1959, there were attempts by “owner Elizabeth F. Baker” to sell or auction the restaurant including furnishings and equipment. I’m not sure whether Elizabeth F. Baker had been Pete Freemas’s wife Betty, or whether she had some other connection to the property.
• –By 1960 it had become Chicken Delight Restaurant, owned by Richard A. Potts (& Forrest W. Womeldorff). It was still Chicken Delight in 1961, but I was unable to check additional years.
• –By 1966 it had become a Kut n’ Kurl Beauty Salon.

According to Wendy, Frank B. and Ola Faye Hyatt owned the parcel for a short time; they are buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery. Orr Zimmerman of Olympic Pool fame also owned the parcel… Some neighborhood folks say that it was called “Corky’s” at one time and that the “owner lived down on W. Jeffrey”; I didn’t find record of that. Someone else thought it became Ricardi’s Italian Restaurant, but my research says that Ricardi’s had an address of 4874 North High, just north of this.

Wendy Bayer found the photos on the MLS Real Estate Cards collection that Carriage Trade Realty and the Columbus Metropolitan library uploaded. Nick Taggart of the Columbus Metropolitan Library Local History and Genealogy Desk furnished the Dispatch articles.

[Images courtesy of Wendy Bayer, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Nick Taggart at the Columbus Metropolitan Library, and The Columbus Dispatch.]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2020 at 11:52 am and is filed under 1940-present, Businesses, People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.