by Joseph H. RADDER
You may have noticed a big change in Greek restaurants in recent years. They’re
bigger, brighter, and beautifully appointed. Their full color menus rival the most
successful national chains. And their chefs offer a wide variety of cuisine, not only
Greek, but other ethnic specialties, and lots of American dishes as well.
Everything is first class. We suggest this is the result of a Baby Boomer revolution.
Indeed the Boomers have taken over the Greek restaurant business.
Typical is the Bechakas family, George and Nick Bechakas and Kelly Bechakas Scouras. It
was our pleasure to meet with all three of them recently after a great dinner in their
relatively new Genesee street restaurant near the airport.
One thing stands out more than any other when one meets the Bechakas family. They value
family values very highly. Unlike many families who are in business together, there’s
a lot of togetherness. “We don’t always agree but we know it’s important to
stick together,” George said. “Some-times you have to give in. We work on a
system of checks and balances. If Nick and I can’t agree on something, Kelly is
usually the moderator. One thing we do agree on always is the importance of commitment.
Being successful in this business calls for total sacrifice, working as a family. But we
couldn’t do it without our spouses’ support and understanding.”
George married Niki Moumoulidis in 1991, Kelly married Paul Scouras in 1992, and Nick
married Gina Diakos in 1995.
Kelly, George, and Nick all grew up in the restaurant business. Nick remembers when he was
little, his parents ran a restaurant on Tonawanda street called Tom’s Texas Hots.
“Both my mother and father worked in the restaurant and they’d take me to work
with them every day before I was in school. My playpen was an egg crate, and I had to stay
in it during the busy times. I couldn’t move until lunch was over.”
George’s most vivid memory is of a time when he was about 12 years old. “I had
just gone to sleep one night when my father woke me up about midnight and told me to get
dressed. The night dishwasher had failed to show up and I had to go down to the restaurant
and wash dishes all night long. Finally he came back to get me about 7a.m.when the day
dishwasher came on duty.”
“We all worked bussing tables when we were kids,” Kelly remembered. “I
loved to go to the restaurant with my father to do odd jobs. He’d pay me a
quarter.”
Dad Terry Bechakas (not to be confused with his cousin, Terry Bechakas who runs the
Hourglass Restaurant) is still alive and well. He opened Lucky’s Texas Hots in the
early 1960s at Jefferson and Utica Streets. “Our mother, Stella, was at his side 24
hours a day.”
Stella Lioukas and Terry Bechakas were married in Greece. He had come to America at age 16
with nothing in his pocket and only his shirt on his back. After some years he was able to
return to Greece, marry Stella, and bring her back to Buffalo.
In 1977, when George was only 12, Kelly only 10, and Nick only 5, Terry and Stella opened
the restaurant at Sheridan and Military Road. George and Kelly worked in the restaurant
from the very start, and it wasn’t long before Nick would join them. They’re
celebrating the restaurant’s 25th anniversary this year. In fact, as luck would have
it, the Bechakases were celebrating the anniversary of one of their original employees,
Linda McCall, on the night of our visit. “Linda is still at the Sheridan drive
location after 25 years,” George said. To honor her, the family gave her an all
-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas.
Apparently the Olympic Restaurants enjoy a lot of employee loyalty. Several people have
been with them ten years or more.
Kelly, George, and Nick are all products of the Depew school system, where they graduated
from Depew High School. George and Nick graduated from Boston University, George with an
economics degree, Nick with a degree in communications, Kelly majored in hotel and
restaurant management at Niagara University. George also holds a master’s degree in
business from the University of Buffalo.
“Kelly was a manager before any of us,” George said. “When she was only
seventeen, our parents went on a cruise and left Kelly in charge.”
Nick is the only Buffalo-born Bechakas who ever worked in another field, and then only as
an interne in the news department at WWKB Radio and Kiss 95.
Early on, the family decided their next restaurant had to be near the airport and its
nearby hotels. When the property on Genesee street became available, they wasted no time
in acquiring it, tearing down the old restaurant that was there, and building the
beautiful new Olympic.
By now you may have the impression that the Bechakas family does nothing but work. Not
true. All three of them and their families are very active in the Hellenic Orthodox Church
downtown at Delaware and West Utica. They also make substantial contributions to other
worthy causes such as the Variety Club Telethon.
George and Nick love sports. “We’re jocks to the fullest,” Nick said. They
have had Buffalo Bills season tickets for 14 years. Apparently it’s always a problem
deciding who works on Sundays during the football season. Kelly usually winds up taking up
the slack, but Nick and George make it up to her by letting her enjoy her favorite
recreation, vacations in the Caribbean.
Future plans are anybody’s guess. They are already marketing their famous Greek salad
dressings, under the Mt. Olympus brand, through Tops and Wegman’s in New York,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. “That’s our hobby,” Nick says.
Indeed there is a new era in Greek restaurants and Baby Boomers like the Bechakas family
are making it happen.
Joseph H. Radder is a freelance writer.