FF_030520

26 | March 5, 2020 | the frankfort station dining out
frankfortstationdaily.com
The Dish
Family-run gyros restaurant celebrates 25 years in Lockport
Benjamin Conboy
Contributing Editor
One day in 1995, Nicky Theodossopoulos
called his son Tim’s
high school.
He told them the gyros restaurant
he just opened in Lockport
had a line out the front door. The
cops were there directing traffic,
because there were so many customers,
even at a time when the
surrounding area was still mostly
farmland.
Nicky needed Tim to leave
school and come to work.
Twenty-five years later, not
much has changed at Nicky’s
Gyros. Though Nicky died 10
years ago, the restaurant that is
his namesake lives on with his
three children at the helm.
Tim and his two sisters, Sophie
Theodossopoulos and Genie
Hart, have worked at the restaurant
every day since 1995.
Sophie now has two children
of her own who work there, and
it is her son’s dream to open up
his own gyros shop.
Genie’s husband, Mark, also
helps at the restaurant. One day,
the Harts’ 3-year-old son —
named Nick after Genie’s father
— may work there, too.
“It’s a real family affair,” Hart
said. “And we’d like to keep it
that way.”
Despite working in close quarters
with their siblings day in and
day out for 25 years, the trio say
they rarely encounter squabbles
as brothers and sisters tend to do.
“Thank God we don’t get into
it,” Genie said. “If we have a
disagreement, we try to talk. We
don’t though. If we need to make
a decision, we talk about it, but
we all usually agree.”
The siblings continue to use
the philosophy of restaurant
stewardship that their father outlined
for them decades ago.
“He was into quality; he always
believed in quality,” Sophie
said. “We never changed
recipes or brands.”
Their gyros ($5.80) are still
“It’s a real family
affair. And we’d
like to keep it that
way.”
Genie Hart — co-owner of
Nicky’s Gyros
Nicky’s Gyros
903 E. 9th St. in Lockport
Hours
• 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m.
Monday-Thursday, Saturday
• 10:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
Friday
• 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday
Phone: (815) 838-0600
made with the same recipe for
tzatziki sauce that the elder Theodossopoulos
crafted. They still
marinate their own chicken and
make the chicken noodle soup
($3.39) with a special twist they
declined to disclose to avoid it
being poached by another restaurant.
They still use the same
Grecian Delight top-quality gyros
cones that were served on
opening day.
“If you look at the ingredients
for our gyros, there’s no fillers,”
Sophie said. “There’s no bonding.
You can pronounce all of the
words. So, when people ask why
our gyros are so expensive, it’s
because we [buy the best meat].”
Even though the roots of
Nicky’s Gyros remain firmly
grounded in their father’s philosophy,
they have made some
changes over the years to modernize
the restaurant.
When Nicky’s Gyros was remodeled
15 years ago, they added
a drive-thru and a computerized
ordering system, changing
the ins and outs of the way the
restaurant was traditionally run
by their father.
“The cooks have a screen
The gyros ($5.80) with homemade tzatziki sauce and fresh tomatoes — along with a quarter-pound of
fried zucchini ($2.60) — are the bread and butter of Nicky’s Gyros in Lockport.
Photos by Benjamin Conboy/22nd Century Media
Sophie Theodossopoulos (left) and her sister Genie Hart run the restaurant, as a portrait of their father,
Nicky, greets customers.
where they can see the orders,”
Sophie said. “Before, we would
have to yell it out. It used to be
all by memory back in the day.
You call out 10 orders, you had
to remember them. Nobody can
remember anything anymore.”
The trio of siblings have given
a lot to the restaurant over the
years, but it has given something
back to them, too. It has become
a bond for them, a gathering
point for family, and given them
a mutual purpose. It serves as a
reminder for the principles their
late father stood for.
All these years later, a portrait
of Nicky still greets customers at
the counter, just like he did when
the restaurant opened 25 years
ago.