S. Prestley Blake, co-founder of Friendly’s, dead at 106

SOMERS, Conn. (AP) — Friendly’s restaurant chain co-founder S. Prestley Blake has died at 106. His niece Holly Schroeder said Blake died Thursday after a short illness at a hospital near his home in Stuart, Florida. Blake and his brother Curtis opened the first Friendly ice cream shop in Springfield in 1935, using a $547 loan from their mother. The shop began selling coffee and hamburgers in the winter months, eventually growing into the restaurant chain Friendly’s, which had more than 500 locations at its peak. They sold the company in 1979 for $164 million. Blake lives for years in Somers, Connecticut, where he built a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello mansion.