{"id":25154,"date":"2022-09-18T13:19:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-18T17:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=25154"},"modified":"2022-09-18T13:19:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T17:19:47","slug":"the-matriarch-of-freds-market-in-plant-city-still-serving-up-hospitality-and-home-cooking-on-her-95th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/09\/18\/the-matriarch-of-freds-market-in-plant-city-still-serving-up-hospitality-and-home-cooking-on-her-95th-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"The matriarch of Fred’s Market in Plant City still serving up hospitality and home cooking on her 95th birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Even at 95 years old, Fred’s Market founder Evelyn Johnson can often be found in the restaurant she started with her husband nearly 70 years ago. Visit the Lakeland location (2120 Harden Blvd.) today from 8 a.m.-9 p.m. for a taste of Southern comfort.    <\/p>\n\n\n

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Happy birthday, greetings came with hugs and kisses for Evelyn Johnson. The matriarch at Fred\u2019s Market in\u00a0Plant City\u00a0turned 95 years old on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s the architect of an amazing spread of\u00a0country cooking\u00a0that the Johnsons started serving up in 1954. They started at their filling station when gas was cheap and the chicken was fried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They would stop by to get gas and say \u2018you got any chicken in there?\u2019 I\u2019d say \u2018sure, come on in.\u2019 that\u2019s how it all started,” said Evelyn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She started with her husband Elton, who passed away in 2010. They switched their business from gas to food. These days their chicken is to die for, and their peach cobbler is like you\u2019ve gone to heaven. But, Evelyn said when they started nearly 70 years ago, she didn\u2019t have a clue about restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No, back then we didn\u2019t go out and eat, Dixie Restaurant was up town, and we\u2019d go up there every once in a while,” Evelyn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What she lacked in knowledge of the restaurant business, she made up for in her warmth and her natural way with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mom has no personal agenda. She doesn\u2019t want anything,” said Fred Johnson, her son and owner of Fred\u2019s Market. “She just wants to be here and take care of people. She always has.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evelyn isn\u2019t just here on her birthday greeting people. She\u2019s a fixture here every weekday from around 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I can only crochet so much, and my house doesn\u2019t get that dirty,” Evelyn laughed. “Why should I stay home when I can see all these good people?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 95, Evelyn has no plans to retire. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even at 95 years old, Fred’s Market founder Evelyn Johnson can often be found in the restaurant she started with her husband nearly 70 years ago. Visit the Lakeland location… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3433],"class_list":["post-25154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-the-matriarch-of-freds-market-in-plant-city-still-serving-up-hospitality-and-home-cooking-on-her-95th-birthday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}