KINGSPORT — Fredrick “Pal” Barger Jr. — founder of the Pal’s Sudden Service restaurant chain, died at his home Thursday afternoon.
Barger, who celebrated his 90th birthday in August, was a well-known philanthropist and benefactor to many local schools, organizations and community efforts.
In 1956, when Pal opened his first quick-service restaurant, on Revere Street in downtown Kingsport, it was his mother, “Little Skoby,” who suggested the best choice was to name it Pal’s. (His father was known as “Big Skoby.”)
Today there are 30 Pal’s Sudden Service restaurants in our region with 1,100 employees. Pal’s was the first restaurant chain in the country to earn the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Of all his business ventures, the success of Pal’s is what made him most proud, Barger told the Times News in August.
Other tidbits from that interview:
• “Making customers happy always motivated me and made me happy. It still does.”
• “I believe it’s not what you gather, but what you scatter.”
Barger’s parents were Fred and Helen Barger, high school sweethearts who married and founded Skoby’s Restaurant, its name derived from their pet name for one another. Pal operated it after his father’s death and donated it to Virginia Intermont College in 2004. His grandfather was Kingsport’s first police chief.
Barger’s wife (and soulmate), Sharon Kimes Barger, died in 2018.
He is survived by three children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The Pal’s Sudden Service Facebook page announced Barger’s death Thursday evening and noted he had been in declining health for the past two years and died of natural causes.
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