Gerald Ensley: Now Mutt and Jeff are gone, but memories of local hangout remain

(This column was first published in the Tallahassee Democrat on Jan. 1, 2008)

He chased Burt Reynolds out of the parking lot for playing dice. He made cherry vanilla Dr Peppers for Faye Dunaway. He turned barbecue slaw dogs into a Tallahassee tradition and provided a sympathetic ear for generations of Leon High students.

Arthur Pichard, the surviving co-founder of Mutt and Jeff's Drive-In, has died at age 91 after a brief illness.

Pichard and partner Dewitt Trawick opened Mutt and Jeff's at Meridian and Thomasville roads in 1948. They named the drive-in for the then-popular newspaper comic, with the diminutive Pichard serving as Jeff to the taller Trawick's Mutt.

They operated the restaurant until both retired in 1981. Trawick died in the early 1990s. Pichard died Saturday.

"The thing I'll remember about Arthur is that he was a real gentleman," said Tallahassee attorney and native Ed Moore. "He was a dynamo, always going 100 mph; Dewitt was a little more laid-back. Arthur always had a smile for everyone."

The drive-in — known to most as simply "Mutt's" — was a magnet for Leon High students, such as future movie star Dunaway. The students thronged the place at lunch, hung out to play pinball in the afternoons, then cruised the parking lot endlessly at night. At a time when Tallahassee had few restaurants, Mutt and Jeff's also became a favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner spot for office and construction workers, families and college students, such as Florida State football player and future movie star Reynolds.

"I would think dang near everybody who lived in Tallahassee during the years it was open went there," said Tallahassee insurance agent and native Bud Carlson. "Kids go to the mall now; they went to Mutt's back then."

The chief attraction was the food: oversized "Wimpy" hamburgers; french fries; cherry or vanilla lemonade "Ickys"; and the iconic barbecue slaw dogs (in which mayonnaise and barbecue sauce were mixed with the slaw).

In 1992, after the building had gone through several uses, Tallahassee native Fincher Smith and partner Drew McLeod renovated it into the current Paradise Grill & Bar, which still serves the famous hot dogs, using Pichard's recipe. In 1998, Paradise Grill staged a Mutt and Jeff's reunion that drew thousands of celebrants — including a beaming Pichard.

"Arthur was like a kid in a candy shop," Smith said. "He stayed until the last person left. It gave him new life and brought back history."

Pichard and his wife, Viola, famed for making cakes that annually won blue ribbons at the North Florida Fair, were married for 64 years until her death in 2006. He is survived by three children and three sisters. The funeral is 1 p.m. Thursday at First Baptist Church.

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section as part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gerald Ensley: Mutt and Jeff are gone, but memories of hangout remain