‘THIS IS THE SPOT’

City restaurateurs eager to raise curtain on completely-revamped Christopher’s

IWOONSOCKET

t might be hard for anybody who remembers the stylish, contemporary feel of the old Vintage to imagine much room for improvement, but after a year of renovations at the direction of brothers Angelos and Stavros Petropulos, the new digs don’t disappoint.

Now the sibling restaurateurs have set a date to let the rest of the city in on the long-awaited resurrection of the Market Square dinner spot as Christopher’s Kitchen and Bar – named for their late father. The curtain goes up with a grand opening on Nov. 5.

“Nothing that was here previously is in the building,” Stavros Petropulos explained as he led a reporter on a tour of the site recently. “New furniture, new chairs, new equipment in the kitchen, new bar setup, new TVs. We painted the building to give it a little bit of our own touch. That’s why you see the grayish-blue here. The couches are blue as well – it reminds us of back home. We’re from Greece, so we want to give that Greek feeling here.”

Located at 2 South Main St., Christopher’s Kitchen was built as a restaurant in 1997 but it hasn’t been open since 2014, when the last in a series of operators shut it down. The structure, inspired by the mill architecture of the region, was pretty impressive to the Petropulos brothers from the minute they walked in during the fall of 2018.

Among those who’ve been invited to a pre-opening sneak peek at the restaurant is the architect, Dan Peloquin, who dropped in one day with some photographs of the original site, says Petropulos. The invitation-only preview will serve as as a sort of dry run for the help, to make sure everything is on track, and will be held on Nov. 2.

But Christopher’s already smells and looks like a running restaurant. A rich meaty aroma wafted from the kitchen one day last week as a group of young adults gathered at the bar, looking very much like patrons, as an apron-clad worker positioned a fresh-from-the-oven pizza in front of them. They weren’t patrons, however, and this wasn’t lunch – it was a careful demonstration of just how a pizza should be served.

Diners can expect Italo-American and Greek-American fare at affordable prices when the restaurant opens, say the veterans of Boston’s tony Seaport restaurant scene.

“I like to say it’s American cuisine, American-eating with a Mediterranean twist,” said Petropulos. “You’re basically going to find your classic dishes, but with a Mediterranean twist. There may be some things on the menu that are hard to pronounce.”

He’s talking about spanakopita, the Greek spinach tart, and yevetsi, which is short rib with orzo pasta. By heritage and training, Angelos, the chef, knows his Greek cuisine, but Christopher’s also employs an Italo-American sous chef, Michael Lombardi, who’s helping dish up “a lot of Italian American favorites,” including chicken and veal dishes.

“The price range is not expensive,” says Petropulos. “We want to be realistic, we’re not going to charge Seaport prices. We know where we are, but that doesn’t mean the quality isn’t going to be there.”

The reanimation of 2 South Main St. not only adds another restaurant to the Market Square district, it repopulates a strategically located building on a stretch of Main Street that’s struggling with stubborn storefront vacancies.

Petropulos says he and his brother had hoped to open the restaurant much sooner, but they encountered some unexpected issues with the long-neglected building after they began poking around.

That was about a year ago, after the real estate was purchased by Worcester businessman Nicholas Markopoulos of Alpha Restaurant Supply around the summer of 2018. Markopoulos had the Petropulos brothers in mind for jump-starting the building as a going restaurant, and when he showed it to them, they loved it.

Christopher’s seats 206 people on two levels, plus an outdoor deck with a panoramic view of Market Square, including picturesque Thundermist Falls and a still-under-construction stretch of the Blackstone River Bikeway that cuts straight through the plaza.

“The building is phenomenal,” Petropulos says. “What’s not to like? It’s breathtaking. You walk in and it has this vibe, this aura. Once we walked in, we said ‘This is it. This is the spot.’”

Markopoulos apparently thinks downtown Woonsocket is a good investment, too. After purchasing the restaurant building at Bernon and South Main streets, he also acquired the Flatiron Building at 2 Main St., the ornate, wedge-shaped structure, across the street from the restaurant, that fits neatly into the junction of Arnold and Main streets like a slice of pie.

The Petropulos brothers have been working in the restaurant business for years – including a few in Greece – where the American-born siblings lived with their parents for awhile after moving away from the Boston area many years ago.

“Our parents had a pastry shop in the Boston, then we moved to Greece in 1998,” said Stavros. “I was 10 years old, my brother was four. Eventually we moved back to the States, and for the past seven years we’ve been in the restaurant business.”

Angelos (he’s now 26 years old, Stavros, 31) came up through the ranks in several Seaport district restaurants during the last several years, including Kava, Committee and the The W Hotel.

The Petropulos brothers aren’t just the city’s newest restaurateurs – they’re also new residents. Once they dug into the restaurant makeover project, they realized it would make sense for them to live in close proximity to the business, so they relocated from Dedham to a condo enclave in the Social neighborhood.

The grand opening marks the beginning of what Petropulos calls “phase one” of the Christopher’s launch. Until the operators are sure they’ve ironed out all the kinks, the restaurant will open for dinner only beginning at 4 p.m. daily. When they’re satisfied with the results, they’ll begin opening the upstairs for weekend dinners and brunches.

Christopher’s is the latest addition to a rapidly changing restaurant scene, including the recent entry of Fazzini’s, also an Italo-American restaurant, on Diamond Hill Road, in August. Another popular spot, River Falls, also in Market Square, was just taken over by the owners of Nara Lounge, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Federal Hill.

It’s a competitive environment, says Petropulos, and he’s pretty sure Christopher’s will fit right in.

“You do the right thing, you give people good service, good food, you’ve got nothing to fear,” he says. “You think positive.”

Ernest A. Brown photos ABOVE: Stavros Petropulos, left, and his brother Angelos, right, new owners of Christopher’s Kitchen and Bar, named in memory of their late father, are pictured with their mother, Maria in front of an enlarged photograph of the Greek island of Kalymnos, a summer destination for the family while growing up in Athens, Greece. AT LEFT: An exterior look at the restaurant, which officially opens on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Ernest A. Brown photos TOP: Stavros Petropulos, left, and his brother Angelos, right, new owners of Christopher’s Kitchen and Bar, named in memory of their late father, are pictured with their mother, Maria, seated, in the restaurant Friday. BELOW: A welcome addition to the Market Square restaurant scene is Christopher’s Kitchen and Bar, located at 2 South Main St. in Woonsocket. The family is pictured from the second level deck, overlooking Market Square.