Nestled unassumingly between the pharmacy and The President of Me, Sporty’s has been one of Vashon town’s enduring businesses. And while it has never been named to any “top” or “best” lists, and may not be as well known off the island as some of its neighbors, the occasionally infamous establishment holds a special place in the hearts of many in the community.

“We are the first place open in the morning and the last place to close at night,” owner Pete Chorak Jr. said. “And we’re only closed two days a year.”

The son of Croatian parents, Chorak took over the business from his father in 1994, when he was just 25.

“We first lived in Enumclaw; my dad had a business there,” he said. “When I was 10, he sold it, and we moved to Vashon.”

The family owned two businesses across the street from each other in town — The Islander and the tavern that eventually became Sporty’s.

“It was PJ’s initially, then Karen’s Place, then Vashon Tavern and finally Chorak’s Sportsman’s Inn,” Chorak explained. “Once it got to that, everyone just started calling it Sporty’s. It stuck, so we changed the sign.”

Meanwhile over at The Islander, pancakes were cooking and gaining a fair amount of notoriety. Bigger than a Frisbee and prepared by Chorak’s mother Neja, they achieved some fame when Chorak’s brother Jason, a record-setting linebacker for the University of Washington’s Huskies football team, was getting a lot of press.

“He would talk about eating the pancakes, and that got some (media) attention,” Chorak said with a chuckle and a big smile.

So it was then, that when the Choraks decided to close The Islander in 1999, they built a kitchen at Sporty’s for the breakfasts to continue — complete with famous-athlete-endorsed pancakes.

With that move, what had previously been the local watering hole quickly became much more than that.

The diner-by-day, bar-by-night incarnation of Chorak’s Sportsman’s Inn with its colorful mural that Croatians immediately recognize as the town of Dubrovnik, became a gathering place for many in the community. Some, simply Islander patrons following their beloved breakfast, but many others have been drawn to it since. And while folks may wander in because, as Chorak noted, they are open early and closed late 363 days a year, they come back because Sporty’s has something special that can’t be ordered from the menu. Something that makes customers feel good about being there and motivates them to keep going back.

Her name is Dorothy Freye.

Freye is Sporty’s breakfast and lunch waitress and has been working with the Chorak family for over 20 years.

“She’s my right-hand girl,” Chorak said of his longtime employee.

According to many of her regular customers, she’s also the heart that beats warmth and life into the operation.

“Dorothy takes care of us,” Vashon Island Rowing Club (VIRC) masters rower Colby Atwood said in an email. “She makes Wednesday morning breakfasts at Sporty’s a high-priority event (for me) — I have re-scheduled a lot of work calls to be there.”

VIRC’s masters men are just one of several groups of islanders who get together there weekly for breakfast or lunch, and Freye gets much of the credit for that.

“Dorothy remembers what we want,” Steve Church, one member of a regular breakfast group Freye affectionately refers to as her “old guys,” said. “All we have to say is ‘the usual,’ and she knows everyone’s orders by heart.”

This particular group of gentlemen range in age from 72 to 87, and most are lifelong islanders. Two no longer live on the island, but come back every week for breakfast with their friends at Sporty’s.

With rowers, “old guys,” “church ladies” and a myriad of other individuals and groups, Freye’s fan club is far-reaching.

“She’s pretty much the best there is at making her customers feel utterly cared-for,” said Jeff Hoyt, one of the VIRC rowers.

Freye says that she adores her customers and that seeing her favorite characters and meeting new ones is what she loves most about her job.

“If someone doesn’t come in, I always wonder if they’re ok,” she said. “The lifelong islanders that come … this is their place to go. And it’s a good place.”

But, into every garden a little rain must fall, and at the end of the day — every day — Sporty’s is a bar. And the stories haven’t always been so glowing.

As The Beachcomber reported in 2009, the bar’s liquor license was suspended for 15 days after it had been caught selling alcohol to minors three times in a two-year period.

Chorak was open about the inevitable pitfalls of the business.

“We always meet with the liquor board, particularly near Strawberry Festival,” he said. “And we have monthly meetings with the staff, about serving and over-

serving. …We have a protocol they’re

supposed to follow. The bartender that was involved in the incidents when we lost our license was fired.”

But Chorak doesn’t let the occasional rain of alcohol-related incidents dampen his spirits.

“I’m a simple man,” he said. “I love everybody, but I have a three-strikes rule. Everyone gets three chances, but if they need a fourth, they’re out for life.”

Some other things that are now “out” of Sporty’s are the old floor, kitchen, waitress station and area behind the bar, as Chorak, his family and friends recently spent about two weeks renovating its interior spaces. “In” is the possibility of opening for dinner a couple of nights per week.

Firmly embracing the notion that the more things change, the more they stay the same, Freye is in for the long-haul.

“I plan on working there (Sporty’s) until I retire,” she said, noting that she was just 23 or 24 years-old when she first started working for the Choraks, and that she and Pete essentially grew up together. “Maybe Peter and I can retire at the same time.”

That should be good news for her regulars, for whom she sometimes  makes homemade jam.

“It’s divine stuff,” Atwood noted. “Sometimes she’ll put a jar or two on the table. When I see it, I make sure I’m having a pancake or oatmeal so I can slather on a few tablespoons of it.”

As members of the community stay connected through a love of enormous pancakes and a special waitress, Freye suggests that the feelings are mutual.

“My customers,” she said, “they are what it’s all about.”