Noah's Ark David Brislin Flavan Jr. was born in St. Louis on January 28, 1930. He grew up in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood with his younger siblings, John, Lucy and Mary. His father was a nationally known heart specialist.
Flavan graduated from St. Louis University High
School and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in electrical
engineering from Washington University. On December 26, 1951, David
Flavan married Martha Louise Vatterott. They would have four
children ― David, Dennis, Mary Clare and Peggy.
Flavan became a pilot for TWA and then Eastern Airlines. While with Eastern, he was obligated to take regular physical examinations.
So Flavan started a restaurant ― just in case. That restaurant was Noah's Ark, which opened on Fifth Street in St. Charles in 1967. But exactly who created Noah's Ark is open to discussion. A straightforward story is told by Flavan himself. Flavan said he had studied the restaurant business for nine years before opening Noah's Ark.
Flavan told this story to the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch in 1972, in 1978, in 1982 and again in 1988. But
never did Flavan mention the name Harry Hilleary.
Harry Hilleary opened the Flaming Pit restaurant at 8135 Clayton Road in 1958. By the end of 1969, there were six Flaming Pit restaurants throughout the St. Louis area and forty-three throughout the nation, most of them franchised. But Flaming Pit was not Hilleary's only restaurant venture. In 1967, Harry Hilleary opened Noah's Ark restaurant in St. Charles.
So David Flavan and Harry Hilleary both laid claim to opening Noah's Ark in St. Charles. A December 16, 1969 St. Louis Court of Appeals ruling provides some clarity.
The ruling goes on to lay out how Hilleary attempted to terminate his franchise agreement with the Flavans. The court prevented him from doing so and prohibited Hilleary from granting other Noah’s Ark franchises in the area. While the court ruling makes clear the relationship between Hilleary and the Flavans as franchisor and franchisee, what's unclear is how the Noah's Ark theme was conceived. The boatful of animals was almost certainly David and John Flavan's idea. The Flavans likely went to Hilleary, an established restaurateur, for help with financing, and the two parties arrived at the franchise relationship. The Flavans then went on to build and operate the restaurant.
By the middle of 1970, Harry Hilleary was
deeply in dept. He was on the brink of bankruptcy and facing
multiple lawsuits. While Hilleary had sold multiple Noah's Ark
franchises, with a few making it to the planning stage, a second
Noah's Ark restaurant was never opened.
Noah's Ark was located on a 20-acre tract, just south of Interstate 70. The building was smaller than the original ark – 150 feet long against the estimated 450 feet of the original, but it was still capable of accommodating up to 500 diners.
At the entrance to the parking lot was a large
white elephant. On the lot itself was a jumbo black elephant. On the
roof were giraffes, tigers, monkeys, elephants and Noah himself,
standing 7 feet tall at the bow of the Ark. A
water-filled moat was at the entrance to the restaurant, with a
hippopotamus snorting and spouting water. Children liked to pitch
coins into its mouth.
Inside the restaurant there were animals everywhere. While the outdoor animals were made of fiberglass, Noah's indoor flock, including a family of zebras, several wallabies, wild birds and a ferocious lion, had once been alive. David Flavan explained that the animals had not been hunted down.
The restaurant's foyer had pegged flooring. Wooden lamps, hand carved and 5 feet tall, were scattered throughout the lobby. There was a chair in the shape of a bear made from a single piece of oak.
The main dining room walls were a combination
of rough cedar planking and wallboard of straw, pressed into
concrete. The tabletops were two inches thick with elephant hoofs
for ash trays.
As the franchisor, Harry Hilleary likely had significant control of the first Noah's Ark menu. The back of the menu stated, "Noah's Ark is licensed by Hilleary and Partners, Ltd."
The initial menu
listed multiple sandwiches and steaks, with limited seafood
offerings. A "special garlic seasoning" was used on the steaks, as
was the practice at Hilleary's Flaming Pit restaurants. A green
salad, a twice baked potato and loaves of bread were served with all
entrees, also similar to Flaming Pit. However, clam chowder and a
salad bar, Noah's Ark's signature entree companions, were not yet on
the menu.
By the 1970s, the Noah's Ark menu was exclusively the product of the Flavans. John Flavan served as the initial manager of the restaurant, but after six years, he left to open a motor inn in Sarasota. A late 1970s menu stated, "Built, owned and operated by David Flavan." The post-Hilleary Noah's Ark menu featured a small cauldron of creamy clam chowder with every dinner entree. Made from a special recipe, it included two types of clams, whole milk, butter, diced potatoes, an original seasoning with seafood herbs, and sautéed onions. Diners could order as much as they wanted. The restaurant served 400 to 500 gallons of the clam chowder weekly.
In addition to the chowder, diners were treated
to an ark-shaped salad bar. It included a large bowl of tossed salad,
with five dressings to choose from. There was also corn
salad, cole slaw, cottage cheese, green bean and red bean salads,
noodle salad, chunks of Jello, pickled okra, herring in cream sauce,
macaroni and potato salads, and an assortment of carrots, celery,
olives, radishes and mixed pickles.
Multiple seafood entrees replaced the sandwiches on Hilleary's menu. The new menu still offered numerous steak options.
Paul McDowell was
Flavan's chef from almost the day Noah's Ark opened until he retired
in the mid 1980s. The Ark's
clam chowder was McDowell's creation.
In May of 1973, Flavan opened Noah's Ark Motor Inn immediately east of his restaurant. The five-story building housed 190 units.
Overnight guests
could be picked up and whisked from Lambert Field to the Inn by a
zebra-striped courtesy car, similar to vehicles used on a safari. A
papier-mache elephant stood atop the Inn and surrounding bushes were
pruned to resemble animals. A lion roamed the Inn's lobby.
Along with his brother John, David Flavan's wife Martha was his partner at Noah's Ark from the beginning. She was responsible for the Ark's indoor decoration.
Martha Flavan died on April 1, 1979 at the age
of 47.
In January of 1980, Noah's Ark opened a dinner theater, with buffet food service. The Ark's Animal Kingdom Room was renovated into a venue seating 200 people at 50 tables. The theater was operated on a year-round basis, with only comedies and musicals on the schedule.
Opening on January 31 was Neil Simon's "The
Last of the Red Hot Lovers," followed on March 13 by Woody Allen's
"Play it Again, Sam." The first musical, "I Do, I Do," opened on
April 24.
By 1988, the Noah's Ark menu looked pretty much the same; the biggest change was the addition of more seafood. There were 10 seafood items on the menu, from fried shrimp and Mississippi catfish to frog legs, scampi and blue fish Cardinale, which was topped with a lobster cream sauce and baby shrimp. There was also a fresh catch of the day. Steaks were the top seller, in the form of fillets, Kansas City strip steaks, porterhouse steaks, top sirloin, pepper steak in a brandy sauce, and medallions of beef topped with Bordelaise, Bearnaise or Hollandaise.
A dessert cart was added, featuring an
ever-varied array of temptations, including Noah's Ark
brownies, a customer favorite.
David Flavan closed Noah's Ark on September 6, 1993 and leased the restaurant to restaurateur Tony Bono. After renovation, Bono reopened the Ark as Captain Tony's. Except for the animals on the parking lot and one interior display, all of the animals were removed, with Flavan putting them in storage.
Captain Tony's was short lived. It closed in
January of 1995 following a dispute over the lease. According to
Flavan, Bono had "grossly violated his contract."
Noah's Ark remained vacant until August 29, 2007, when several hundred people showed up for a demolition party. The Ark was being razing to make way for a $385 million commercial and residential complex. David Flavan attended and watched the passing of his 40-year-old Ark.
On September 23, 2020, David Flavan passed on
as well, at the age of 90.
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