The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011

Chapter 9 Food Fights, Fabulous Feasts, Follies, and Just Plain Fun: Entertainment through the Years

The historical importance and current international reputation of CYC is undeniably tied to boating activities. Food and fun off the water have, however, also always played important roles in the history of the club. As you will remember from previous chapters, CYC was born in 1911 at a New Year’s Eve dinner party. The first meeting of the newly reorganized club following its demise in the real estate bust of the late 1920s must have also involved food as it was held at the Seven Gables Tea Room. The second, larger, meeting of the newly constituted club was held at Dailey’s Cafeteria and her flag has been proudly flying and her members eating (at some location or another) ever since that fateful meal (Ransom and Tracy, 1961). By the early thirties, CYC was holding “fish and grits” parties every Friday night—first in the rented house on Old Clearwater Bay and then in the “Little Clubhouse” on Mandalay Avenue on Clearwater Beach. As the name implies, this clubhouse was not large and “because floor space was at a premium, some member invented a sort of ‘Murphy Table’ which seated 30 at a time

89