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A menu handmade with love

The owner of St. Pete Cafe makes every item with the aim to make customers happy.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published October 11, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - A child walks into the St. Pete Cafe and Fred steps out from behind the counter, presses his hands together as if in prayer, and smiles and bows to welcome the boy to the tiny, four-table store tucked in the shadow of Interstate 275 along Central Avenue.

"I want a lemonade," the boy says, digging deep into his pocket and carefully counting out his coins.

Fred, 57, whose real name is Farhad Navab, steps lightly to the small kitchen where he makes by hand a fresh glass of lemonade and includes his special ingredient: a squirt from a newly sliced lime.

"Everybody loves my lemonade," said Fred, who speaks fluent English after almost 30 years away from his native Iran but carries a rich accent in his voice and his manner. "Someday, I hope to sell 100 in a day."

Since buying the cafe in June, Fred has been making more than lemonade, including sandwiches, a mean espresso, homemade hummus and spinach pan-fried in olive oil. Business has been a struggle but he still revels in the act of preparing food and drinks for others, something he credits to his traditional Middle Eastern upbringing.

"I try to make my food with love," Fred said. "If I don't make it with love, it's not going to taste the same."

Fred has taken a long and circuitous route to this living-room-sized cafe at 1939 Central. He's never owned a business before. When he came to the U.S. in 1977, he was just here to study English.

Fred spent half a year at Eckerd College and then another 18 months at what was then St. Petersburg Junior College. While he was learning about America, an Islamic revolution in his country upset the order of things for his father, who had been an officer in the deposed shah's army.

"Everything changed over there," he said. "My family couldn't send me any money, so I had to start working."

With only a student visa, Fred could not work legally, but he found odd jobs here and there.

In 1986, the Reagan administration granted amnesty to illegal aliens and Fred got a green card that allowed him to work legally. On his way to citizenship in 2003, he spent time working his way from busboy to bartender at the Columbia Restaurant in Tampa, then worked at a country club in Lakeland and later at Saffron's.

Over the years, Fred has gone home to Iran three times to visit his parents and siblings. The last visit, in 2003, he planned to stay but said he couldn't bear it.

"When I saw the government, how they tortured people, beat them, it looked like an occupied country," said Fred, who was raised Muslim but now considers himself an atheist. "The things they are doing in the name of God, it's not right."

Fred came back and worked with his sister in Houston, but missed St. Pete and returned. When he found the opportunity to buy the cafe, he said he was happy to have a chance to return to the restaurant business.

"My people are famous for their hospitality," said Fred, who is from Shiraz, a 2,600-year-old mountain city that was once the capital of Persia and has long hosted visitors to its shrines and mosques. "A lot of tourists go to Shiraz. We respect our guests."

Though downtown is moving west and the Grand Central district is booming, Fred's cafe is located in a slow area in between.

Plans for new apartments nearby give him hope, but he's eager for tourists and snowbirds to return sooner and boost the business he tends alone.

"I'm sure it's going to get better in the future," he said.

Fred said his joy is in giving people a place to forget their problems, even if only for the duration of lunch.

"I like to make people happy," he said, "because life is hard enough."

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.

[Last modified October 10, 2006, 19:57:16]