Reflecting on his just about 40 years of industrial, Mike Tsikoudakis spoke slowly and sparsely, with a tear in his eye.
“(I’m) thankful endlessly,” he mentioned about his consumers. “They’re at all times going to be in my center. And I’m going to pass over them, however it was once time for me to transport on.”
Tsikoudakis, 72, and 68-year-old trade spouse Terry Vaidis are retiring and promoting their Greek eatery Monaco Inn Eating place at 962 S. Monaco St. Limited-access highway. They opened it in 1986.
Pomodoro Pizza and Pasta, an Italian eating place simply around the Aurora border close to Lowry, will probably be taking on the gap for a 2d location, doubtlessly as early because the month’s finish.
“I simply felt like (it was once) my very own eating room,” Tsikoudakis mentioned.
A few years in the past, he was once a 16-year-old child from Crete, a big island south of mainland Greece, visiting Denver on his uncle’s dime. His lifestyles turned into firmly intertwined with the town and the rustic from that time on, discovering paintings in eating places round the city. By no means as a chef, however as a bartender and supervisor.
Bored with transferring from activity to activity, he heard of an empty eating place on the market and bought it for $50,000.
“Once we first opened, my gosh. I imply, I feel one drink was once $2.50,” Tsikoudakis mentioned.
Steaks have been $9, a gyro was once $6. Now, the ones pieces value $27 and $15.
For a lot of the eating place’s life, Monaco Inn served Mexican, Greek and American meals, and operated seven days per week. As soon as the pandemic struck, Tsikoudakis and Vaidis pared again the menu — specializing in the Greek — and the hours, remaining Sundays and between lunch and dinner.
At the choice to retire, “The frame tells you,” Tsikoudakis mentioned.
“We didn’t suppose that we have been going to seek out someone this speedy. However those guys have been really helpful, consider it or no longer, by way of some other buyer,” he mentioned.
Pomodoro is administered by way of two Mexican households. In its tiny 1,150-square-foot storefront in a strip mall at 567 Dayton St., Luis Enriquez speaks of affected by luck.
“We get too busy and we lose a large number of consumers … we don’t pay promoting right here,” he mentioned.
Since opening up Pomodoro along with his spouse Gloria and buddy Blanco about two-and-a-half years in the past, the trio have created a small group inside of its partitions, they are saying. About 20 to 30 folks are available for lunch, some other 150 for dinner. After their first 12 months, it turned into transparent that extra space was once wanted, in order that they began hanging out feelers.
“It felt like the precise have compatibility,” Enriquez mentioned of assembly Tsikoudakis.
The 2 eating places be expecting to near on a deal quickly. Pomodoro plans to stay the similar menu — which incorporates a $23 rooster parm and a $13 baked manicotti — within the new spot. Blanco makes the pizzas, together with his favourite, the Blanco, a white pizza.
Enriquez and Blanco spend maximum in their time within the kitchen, soaring round an previous, massive oven that handles the whole thing from pizzas to lasagnas. Gloria works the entrance of the home.
“We make a really perfect crew, a server and a chef,” Luis Enriquez mentioned.
Luis Enriquez, like Tsikoudakis, got here to the states from his house nation as a youngster. He bounced from Italian eating place to Italian eating place in New York Town sooner than coming to Colorado a few decade in the past, operating for a time at Cherry Hills Nation Membership.
He and Blanco bounced the theory of beginning a trade in combination from side to side sooner than discovering the spot on Dayton.
“It was once a hollow right here, holes within the wall. We made it emblem new,” Enriquez mentioned.
And regardless that he hails from Mexico, a spot of significant delicacies and taste, the chef sticks to creating meals he is aware of highest: Italian.
“He’s gonna put a basil within the salsa,” his spouse Gloria quipped.
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