A Taste of Home

Posted by estiator at 10 October, at 16 : 07 PM Print

Ioannis Papatherapontos shares Greek Cypriot flavors at New Jersey’s Fournos Greek Café & Eatery. By Michael Kaminer

While he may be a first-time restaurateur, Ioannis Papatherapontos is anything but a novice in the world of hospitality. • Estiator readers—many of whom are his customers—may know him as the owner of J. Pappas Payments, which handles credit-card processing, POS systems, and insurance for restaurants across New Jersey.

Now, Papatherapontos is making a splash on the other side of the business. Fournos Greek Café & Eatery, which he opened in Little Falls, New Jersey, with wife Tina and daughter Alexandra, generated headlines with a grand opening that drew the mayor, the family’s parish priest, town council members, and overjoyed locals.

“We wanted it to look and feel like a mini-festival, and my daughter organized it beautifully,” says Papatherapontos. “We had a tent with tables, bouzouki music, and even an orchestra.” The restaurant made its debut in August.

It was a visit home to Cyprus that inspired Papatherapontos to open Fournos. “My favorite place there, Zorbas Bakeries, has everything from a bakery and coffee stand to a buffet with local food at lunchtime. I told myself, ‘There’s nothing like that in New Jersey.’ Fournos is a café in the morning and an eatery in the afternoon, with full breakfast and lunch menus,” he says.

Memories of home also resurfaced in the design for Fournos Greek Café & Eatery, which Papatherapontos conceived himself. “I took inspiration from local coffee shops where I come from. In the πλατεία [town square], you’d walk around the center of the village, see a coffee shop, another next to it, then a little taverna. I took those pieces from my memories of Cyprus and built something that puts together a coffee shop and a μπάκαλικο [small general store] to make it feel like you’re back home.”

Customers are telling him they’re experiencing déjà vu when they walk through Fournos’ doors. “They’re telling me they feel like they’re in Greece, which is what I intended,” he says. “When you open the doors, I want you to feel like you’re there, not here.” Likewise, support from the Greek and Cypriot communities has been overwhelming, he says. “It has actually surprised me, because I thought I was the only one. People are coming up to me and telling me they’re from this village or that town—there are a lot of us here, it turns out.”

Papatherapontos was born in Famagusta, the historic port city on Cyprus’ east coast that was “taken in the 1974 invasion by the Turkish army,” he says. His family moved to Paphos on Cyprus’ southwest coast. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1988 to pursue studies in financial services and accounting at Rutgers University in New Jersey. After graduating, Papatherapontos launched a series of successful businesses, including J. Pappas LLC, which encompasses J. Pappas Payments, an insurance agency, and a brokerage for energy and commodities.

“I call myself an entrepreneur. I love to set up businesses, but not running them. I count on the people around me. But I have to say it was a lot easier to do that in professional services than it is with a restaurant,” he says. To build Fournos Greek Café & Eatery, Papatherapontos demolished a free-standing insurance agency he owned on the site and constructed a multi-use building with Fournos on the ground floor and apartments above. The restaurant features stone walls, booths, European-style bistro chairs, and three televisions continually running images of Greece.

“I thought construction would be the hardest part, but that was easy. What’s extremely challenging is managing people. If you make a mistake, customers won’t come back,” he says. “You have to be perfect at all times. Consistency is the biggest issue, and it’s a challenge to find people who can translate your vision into what you want to do.” But there have also been surprises. Papatherapontos hired a chef for Fournos “who didn’t work out. But I hired a dishwasher who turned out to be an excellent chef,” he says.

As in his childhood, Papatherapontos says family now keeps him centered. “Whatever was going on with my family growing up, we had our Sundays surrounded by souvla and things in the oven. That’s something I miss—whatever your issues are, Sunday is the day for you to relax, reward yourself, and have the best cuisine. Food was a big part of my house growing up, with homemade cooking from my parents and yiayia. I was always surrounded by great food, and that’s one reason I created Fournos.”

Those traditions carry on in the Papatherapontos household—and at the restaurant. “I have three kids, and on Sundays, I told them, you have to come over, and we have to eat together,” he says. “That’s one of the best things the restaurant did—it brings a lot of families together, especially on Saturdays and Sundays.”

In fact, Fournos’ menu names its sections for family members. “Androulla’s Kouzina,” named for his mother, includes classics like moussaka, loukaniko, pastitsio, and kleftiko. “Therapon’s Grill,” which salutes his father, showcases grilled meats, with a souvlaki platter, gyro platter, and a sheftalia, a traditional Cypriot lamb and pork sausage. “My father taught me how to grill,” Papatherapontos says. The “Alexandra’s Bakery” section of Fournos’ menu, named for his daughter, includes desserts like portokalopita, galaktoboureko, and baklava, along with savory pies like tiropita and spanakopita. There are also luscious cakes, flaky croissants, and gelato. “My daughter loves to bake. The thought process across the entire menu is to take something that’s homemade, from an original recipe, and translate it into a business.”

Papatherapontos also drew on recent experiences in his homeland for some of Fournos’ innovations. “When I was there, I visited an old village and saw recipes I’ve never seen in the U.S.,” he says. “There’s a version of the koulori, a kind of Cypriot bagel made with mastiha and ginger. It’s a special taste you find in Greece. I says, why can’t I have something that reminds me of Cyprus in Little Falls?” The koulori, he explained, has origins in a century-old recipe from Smyrna [now known as Izmir, Turkey]. “When people left Smyrna during the [1922] Asia Minor disaster, they brought this beautiful koulori bagel, and I was able to replicate it here, after much trial and error,” he says. “I finally found flour from Italy. It’s three times more expensive, but worth it.”

Fournos also serves lountza, a Cypriot cured pork tenderloin similar to bacon. “We make it in-house. When I was a kid, we would sneak out from school and go to a place next door with the best koulouri with halloumi cheese and lountza. I went to great lengths to replicate what I was enjoying back in the day.” To grill meats in-house, Papatherapontos imported a rotisserie from Brazil “to recreate an old-school psistaria,” he says. The lountza, egg, halloumi, and tomato sandwich is now one of the biggest hits on Fournos’ breakfast menu.

Despite Fournos’ success and glowing reviews, Papatherapontos still claims he’s not a restaurateur. “I applied basic business principles to make this work, like I run my insurance agency. I have one basic spreadsheet. It includes vendors, schedules, opening and closing procedures, recipe management—a checklist of how it’s done. It’s just common sense.”

COVER STORIES HOME PAGE Cover Story, Fournos Greek Café & Eatery, Michael Kaminer