S. Prestley Blake co-founded the Friendly’s chain of restaurants along with his brother, Curtis Blake.Blake and his brother opened the first Friendly’s in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1935, selling 5-cent ice cream cones.
Blake wrote in his 2011 autobiography, “A Friendly Life,” that they were able to open the shop with a gift of $547 from their parents.
They soon added hamburgers to their menu, and they later added a second location. Both locations were temporarily closed during World War II as the brothers joined the war effort, but when they returned, they not only reopened the restaurants – they also began expanding and adding new Friendly’s locations.
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