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On a
Sunday night recently, the last glass of wine at New Hellas
Café in Greektown, Detroit was poured and sipped. The final
"Opa!" was shouted, and then the doors were closed for the
last time.
After 107 years in Detroit, New
Hellas, the city's oldest Greek restaurant, is only a memory.
Owner Gus Anton, 80, of Grosse
Pointe said he can't keep up with the busy life of a restaurateur
anymore and had to shut down the popular business his father opened
in 1901.
"I'm very sad, naturally,"
he said. "But at my age, what can you do? I'm old. I need
the rest."
The 35 New Hellas employees will
receive severance pay and, if the restaurant is sold, Anton hopes the
staff will be hired back. For now, he isn't certain what will happen
to the building once the restaurant is closed.
Anton was 20 when he started
working for his father, James, a chef in Greece, at New Hellas. When
James died in 1950, Gus took over and has been running it ever since.
"For 60 years, I've been here,"
Anton said. "I'll miss the restaurant, the employees and all
the wonderful people who come here."
New Hellas Café was
featured twice on the Food Network.
The restaurant also has been a
stop for visiting celebrities, including comedian Bob Hope, chef
Emeril Lagasse and actress Lainie Kazan.
New Hellas, which means Greece,
has always been a part of 37-year-old Rosemary Tokatlian's life.
Her mother met her father there
while her mum was an employee. The family goes to New Hellas
regularly and Tokatlian has worked there off and on for 20 years.
She works as a hostess
occasionally and considers the Antons her second set of parents. She
teared up at the thought the restaurant being closed.
"It means the world to me,"
said Tokatlian of Grosse Pointe Park.
"It's a fantastic place
with fantastic people. There's no collection of people like this
anywhere else in the world."
Dino Mitropoulis, also known as
Dino the Tailor, owner of the Birmingham store of the same name,
first walked in New Hellas in 1968, the year he arrived in Detroit
from his native Greece.
"I tasted the lamb chops
and I said 'OK, this is where I come to eat the lamb chops.' I eat
lamb chops there just maybe a month ago. Still the best lamb chops in
the state," said Mitropoulis, 65. "I've known Gus
when he was young and good looking, and that, my friend, was a long
time ago. He's just like all good Greek businessmen who work very
hard. They do it because they love this country and what it's done
for us."
Longtime customer Becky Pinterich
of Dearborn has been coming to New Hellas with her family for 35
years and says there is no other Greek restaurant of its caliber
anywhere in Detroit.
"This is the last hurrah,"
said Pinterich, 66. "We're thrilled for Gus and Zoe, but
we're real sad."
Vassos Avgoustis, 70, opened his
restaurant, Cyprus Taverna, next door to New Hellas in 1992. He got
his start in the restaurant business by working as a waiter for Anton
in 1982.
"It's a shame actually
because this restaurant started Greektown," he said.
"It's going to be a loss
because it's very famous. Hopefully new owners will keep it going."
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