Editor’s note: Publications are rife with lists of people who have notched impressive achievements before reaching certain milestone ages. If you miss out on 20 Under 30, you can hold out hope for 40 Under 40. After 40, though, sorry: You’re on your own. And we don’t think you should be. So, this month, we’re spotlighting local notables who are making inspiring contributions to our community — and who happen to be over the age of 70. Because precociousness is great, but so is perspective.
photograph by jamie harmon
John Vergos is an attorney, restaurateur, environmentalist, former city councilman, and civic activist. If you ask him to summarize his career, it brings forth a thoughtful answer.
“When you get older,” he says, “things you did that you thought were important tend to be forgotten as the years pass. For example, one of the things I’m really proud of, I started back in 1971, when I was attending law school at Memphis State. Most people don’t know — or don’t remember — that the county was once going to sell off the land that is Shelby Farms Park. I thought that was a terrible idea and with another law student formed a rag-tag committee called the Penal Farm for Public Use Committee.”
As absurd as it sounds now for the county to want to sell the 4,500 acres of Shelby Farms to developers, back then, Vergos and his young allies were taking on some big foes. “The newspapers, the mayors, the Chamber of Commerce,” he says, “they were all pushing for the sale.”
But Vergos’ little committee soon gained some heavyweight allies, including powerful attorney and environmentalist Lucius Burch, who helped raise money behind the scenes to give to Vergos’ committee to buy ads to fight the sale. Three years later, by a one-vote margin on the third reading of the measure, the sale was ultimately voted down by the county commission.
“It was 1974 and I was in Knoxville, studying for the bar, when Lucius Burch called to tell me the good news,” Vergos recalls. “I didn’t have any champagne at the time, but I wish I had.”
Vergos retained that passion for the environment while serving as District 5 city councilman for eight years in the 1990s. He was sometimes referred to as “the one” because his votes against measures that were popular with his council colleagues often ended in 12-1 outcomes, with Vergos on the losing end.
“I never voted for any billboards or developments that would fill the floodplain,” he says, with a smile. He did somehow manage to get a very restrictive billboard ordinance passed — again, as with the victory at Shelby Farms — by one vote.
“I still don’t know how I got the seven votes to get that passed,” he says, “but it’s only been breached twice since, that I’m aware of.”
Other environmental victories included stopping the sale of what is now Vance Park on the bluff to a McDonald’s franchise for $15,000, and pushing through the building of the Bluff Walk against the wishes of most influential Downtown developers and city powers-that-be. Again, what now seems like an obvious good thing for the city took a real political fight before it became reality. Vergos was on the right side of history on numerous occasions.
But even given the importance of Vergos’ activism, we’d be remiss if we ignored his family’s restaurant legacy, of which he is still very much a part. In 1948 (the same year John was born), his father, Charlie Vergos, founded the Rendezvous, one of the most famous barbecue joints in the world. The restaurant is still a hands-on family business, co-managed by John’s daughter Anna, who also serves as general counsel. Daughter Katherine runs the social media and designs merchandise; son Charlie is a comedian who has a routine called “Barbecue Rich.”
Vergos has a million Rendezvous stories, but space limits us to just one: “In the early days,” he says, “my dad basically served as his own bouncer. One night, there was a rowdy young guy being a schmuck, causing trouble, so my dad finally just dragged him up the stairs and threw him out in the alley.
“The next day, he gets invited down to Mayor ‘Boss’ Crump’s office, and Crump asks him, ‘Did you throw somebody out of your restaurant last night?’ My dad says, ‘Yeah, the SOB was a pain in the ass, so I threw him out.’ Crump says, ‘That SOB was my son. You will let him back in, and if he ever causes trouble again, you call me.’
“As my dad was walking out the door, Crump says, ‘Hey, who handles your insurance?’ From that day on, my dad said we were with E.H. Crump Insurance.”
