By Jimmy Banakis

December 31, 2023

It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.

— EPICURUS (Of Samos)

Ah, to take pleasure in the joys of friendship. The kind of friendship leisurely enjoyed at a long dining table in the garden with musical accompaniment and a shepherd. The photo above was taken 120 years ago of my ancestors in their village of Mystra in the Peloponnese.

The occasion was the return visit of my great-grandfather and great-great-uncles 18 years after starting their American dreams. By this time, one had already started an ice cream business, and one a produce business. My great-grandfather (the one in the back row playfully holding the carafe of wine with an orange on top) and his brother-in-law, had opened a restaurant at Cicero & Lake, the last stop west on the Lake Street El.

These optimistic young men, just starting families, were unaware that in a few years one would be shot and killed by a jealous competitor. One would lose a son at Belleau Wood in the Great War. One would continue opening restaurants following the El line west to Oak Park. One would decide not to return to Chicago but stay in the village and marry his sweetheart.

Greek men have always made time to gather, bond, and enjoy each other’s company usually at the “kafenio” or small cafe. While the word kafenio is Greek, all cultures have their own variation where men gather and bond. Think of it primarily as a place for conversation and refreshment and not intoxication.

On the island of Samos where my father’s family emigrated from, Uncle Nick took me to a my first kafenio in the beautiful harbor town of Pythagorion. I was 25 years old, a young man newly married on my first trip to Greece. To call this kafenio a restaurant or even a café would be an exaggeration. It was simply a small place with a tiny outdoor kitchen run by a husband and wife. She prepared small plates and the husband was the waiter. The waiter would sit and join in the conversation when things slowed down.

I still remember sipping the rich coffee and sharing a plate of kayana, a scrambled egg dish.

On this most perfect of mornings, we watched three young men cursing, trying to load lumber on a donkey. Two cats lay sunning themselves. A small boat pulled into the harbor, and 5 or 6 tavern owners rushed over to unload crates of produce. The men on the boat then started to hand over baby lambs loudly bleating with their legs tied together to a butcher for his inspection. Two old men at the next table were playing “portas,” a variation of backgammon, and they asked me to join them and learn.

All four of us discussed politics, life in the United States, food, women, and gambling until the afternoon when we switched to tsipouro, a drink much like grappa. As we sipped, a large grey gunboat swiftly steamed into the harbor. The two old men, alarmed, jumped to their feet. Then we all relaxed seeing the beautiful blue and white flag of Hellas. I asked the old men what would we have done if that was a Turkish ship? One of them picked up his fork and defiantly said, “we fight.”

Years later on trips to Greece, gathering ideas and researching food for a restaurant I was about to open on State and Ontario, I would stop at kafenios to rest, sip frappe, and organize my notes. I realized that mostly old men gathered there. The old men were always curious to know where I came from and where I was going. I would watch them and listen to their conversations. They often talked about their children, grandchildren, told stories, sometimes they’d watch a soccer game on a small TV with terrible reception.

Sometimes they quietly sat to watch the impossibly beautiful sunsets that they probably never took for granted. These were old friends comfortable in their own silence. A few might flip worry beads in their creased hands. It was clear to me that these old men wanted nothing more from each other than companionship. When it was time to go home, they would drop a few coins on the table and carefully head back to their families. Some comfortably and confidently used walking sticks for stability.

Fast forward to this morning as I sit at my word processor, I have officially been retired for 16 hours. After a lifetime of working in, building, opening, closing, selling, buying, and even giving away restaurants, I’m done. I have no regrets. As one of my mentors once told me, “If you’re going to work, why not have fun and make money, otherwise, what’s the point?” That has always been my philosophy, and it has been fun!

Let me share some highlights of my last three days.

• I pick up one of my cooks at 5:30 in the morning and bring him to the restaurant because he has a DUI and can’t operate a car for a year. I really need the cook, and he’s entertaining.
• A woman calls me over to her table, and complains that her coffee is TOO HOT!
• At the beginning of lunch, my chef informs me that we MAY run out of eggs, as our foods delivery hasn’t arrived. I ask, “How many do we have left?” He replies, “two.” I ask, “two cases?” He replies, “No, two eggs.”
• My lead server tells me we need to talk, never a good sign. The kid from Colombia I’m training in the kitchen informs me through an interpreter that he’s not really into manual work, do I have anything else for him, preferably in the office.
• I’m awoken at 12:30 in the morning by the alarm company. It turns out to be a faulty wire.
• Four classmates I haven’t seen since graduating from OPRF are sitting at table 26. We catch up and promise to all get together again. It’s always been organized madness yet, as George C. Scott famously said in the movie Patton, “I do love it so.”

Throughout the years I have always carved out a special table in any of my restaurants to meet with my male friends. Sometimes they’re friends from college or high school, sometimes church,

sometimes business partners, customers, relatives, and always my 3 brothers. My grandfather always set up shop at a booth in the back of his restaurant with a bottle of Old Taylor and shot

glasses on the table.

There was always laughter and cigars. My grandfather was a great storyteller. As a kid I would sit a few tables away trying to overhear while reading a comic book and drinking a Green River. Thinking back on it now when the conversation got a bit racy, Papou would call me over hand me 50

cents and tell me to go next door and get a haircut. I didn’t mind because that was another bastion of male bonding. I miss barber shops.

The one next to Candyland had 4 chairs and catered to the doctors from the Medical Arts building, the men from the newspaper delivery office, the owner of the pet store, the guy who operated the El train gates, and an occasional cop. They all enjoyed each other’s company. They even encouraged me to jump into the conversation, as I received my “regular boys’ haircut.” I remember one telling a story about my grandfather chasing a persistent salesman out of the store with a large chef’s knife.

In the misandrist atmosphere of today, men, especially men who fought the wars, worked all their lives raised and educated kids, paid taxes, loved their wives and made their communities better and safer, are the enemies. Being a man is somehow toxic. Men wanting to enjoy spending time with other men, golfing, attending sporting events or just talking politics in a “kafenio” setting are somehow responsible for all the unfairness in the world.

Sadly, many young men today are confused and aching for the type of role models only strong fathers and father figures can provide. Forty years ago, it was rare to have single mothers working as servers. Today it’s painfully common.

For the past few weeks as my retirement was imminent, my friends began asking what are my plans? I recently read that Clint Eastwood, in his nineties, said he kept active by “not letting

the old man in.” My plan, not fully developed yet, is to do something that I always wanted to do in another life, and also not let the old man in.

I’ll spend more time at kafenios laughing and crying with the boys. We’ll tell and retell all the old stories. I’ll describe all the wonderful meals I’ve sampled to anyone who’ll listen. I’ll tell my grandchildren all the family stories I collected along the way.

Every day I’ll remember the funny, confident girl who walked into my life and, from that time forward, was responsible for everything good that has happened in my life. I will always revere the photo frozen in time of my ancestors posing proudly at the table in the garden. If time travel were possible, I’d love to climb into that picture and join them for a glass of tsipouro and hear their restaurant stories and share mine. I might even teach them to make a deep-dish pizza. As Papou always said at the end of his stories. “What a life!”

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Jimmy Banakis is a life-long restauranteur.  He was an honorary batboy for the White Sox in 1964. He attended Oak Park River Forest High School, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Chicago-Kent Law School.  He claims the kitchen is the room he’s most comfortable in anywhere in the world. He published an extremely limited-edition family cookbook. He’s a father and grandfather, and lives in Downers Grove Il.