A bright swath of double-decker-bus red catches people’s eyes near the intersection of Seventh Avenue North and U.S. 41. The more-than 8-foot-tall midcentury cast-iron British telephone booth sits locked and empty in front of Lake Park Diner, one of Naples buzziest contemporary restaurants. At the top of the four rectangular sides is etched, in a distinctly English serif font, ‘St. George and the Dragon.’
To many passersby, it’s a quirky landmark and conversation starter. But to those who lived in or have heard the tale of the sleepy community that used to be Naples, it’s a relic of mythic proportions.
Once upon a time, when Fifth Avenue South’s downtown strip took up little more than a city block, a restaurant existed where sport coats were required for dinner, and no one seemed to mind despite the proximity to the Gulf. Everyone who entered knew your name, and you knew theirs. St. George and the Dragon, inspired by its owners’ love of England and New England, was trimmed inside and out in custom-carved wood beams, with that distinctive vermillion phone booth as its exterior calling card. The dark interiors were also a sight, covered floor to ceiling in timber panels to resemble an old sailboat cabin, with maps, compasses and nautical antiques peppering every square inch of the walls.
The restaurant debuted its polished surf-and-turf menu in November 1969 and remained virtually unchanged until serving the final round of its signature conch chowder with a shot of sherry on July 23, 2012. “St. George was so good for that time—and even today. People say to me now, ‘Boy, I wish St. George was still there,’” reminisces Bill Barnett, himself a living legend, known affectionately as Mayor Bill after serving a combined total of 16 years as mayor and 12 as a councilman between 1984 and 2020. (He also knows his food inside and out, having written restaurant reviews in secret for the Naples Daily News under the nom de plume of Jacques Gourmand in the ’80s.) “Their specialty was prime rib … You could get every cut you wanted, but they were known for their King Arthur cut, and, wow, was that a monster slab of beef,” he adds.
The restaurant was a family endeavor with the late founders, George and Marylin Ginos, at the helm and their children, Kevin and Eileen, involved from the start. There was a no-reservations policy, but in its heyday (which lasted pretty much the entire four-decade lifespan), people would cue up and wait two or three hours for a table in season. The circular, hand-carved teak bar was always packed shoulder to shoulder with what Bill recalls was a martini crowd to rival that of Mad Men. “It was the place to be. Everybody who was anybody was there on a Friday or Saturday night. Lawyers, doctors. It’s where everybody got together to see and be seen,” says Kevin, who devoted 35 years to the family business after graduating from the University of Florida.
People sometimes assumed St. George and the Dragon was in reference to George, a Greek-American who ran restaurants in New York and Pennsylvania, and his bride Marylin, who moved together to Florida to manage a few casual places before opening St. George. “It was a private family joke that their roles were reversed—that my dad was actually the dragon, not the saint, because he was super strict. Whenever he spoke to anyone in the kitchen, it was always met with, ‘Yes sir, yes sir,’” Eileen Ginos Merriman says with a laugh.
There were plenty of famous guests, including Secretary of State George Shultz and NFL Hall of Famer Dan Dierdorf. Still, Kevin and Eileen agree the heart of the place were its regulars, like car magnate Bob Germain Sr., Port Royal developer Glen Sample, and vintner and food mogul Clarke Swanson.
The good times lasted through the first tech bubble and 9/11, but the Great Recession brought winds of change that proved too strong. The town quieted, and there had never been more competition for people’s dining dollars. George had long passed, and Marylin could not put the same amount of energy into her beloved restaurant.
When news spread that the family was letting go, locals gathered to pay their respects. “There were a lot of people who would knock on the door to share a memory,” Eileen says. “We were dying inside, but we thought, ‘How wonderful it was to be able to share this with them.’”
After Marylin sold the iconic 936 Fifth Avenue South property in 2014 to local real estate developer Adam Smith, Kevin got a call out of the blue: “All I heard one day was that a friend of mine who works on Fifth looked out the window and he saw the phone booth going down the street.” Pretty soon, rumors were confirmed: The booth had found a permanent home outside Lake Park Diner. Adam—who passed away in 2021—was building the restaurant and placed the phone box out front as a nod to his British heritage. Kevin and Eileen are both glad it’s there. (The Fifth Avenue lot, where St. George sat, remains in developer limbo, having changed hands after Adam’s purchase. The building is now razed. Pitches include Whole Foods and RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware.) The booth has grown in significance. “The plan is to install one of those at each new location for Lake Park Diner as a tribute to Adam,” says Elena Griffin, who handles marketing for the restaurant that’s part of restaurateur Paul Fleming’s extensive holdings.
But to anyone who knows, it will always stand in honor of St. George—and by extension, Naples’ flourishing culinary scene as we know it.
