Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
‘Why aren’t you retired?’ It’s family pride
Husband, wife still at the restaurant after decades
SALT LAKE CITY — Whatever you do, don’t call John or Rula Katzourakis during the lunch hour. You might think that after 38 years of owning and operating Crown Burgers, a culinary fixture in Salt Lake City, they might be kicking up their feet on a beach somewhere, tipping their hats to the American dream they are living.
But if you call at midday, as someone did recently, Rula will say: “It’s the lunch hour. I can’t talk right now.” End of conversation.
It’s rush hour at Crown Burgers, and John and Rula, 76 and 70, respectively, are following a routine. John still opens the store every morning and cooks the food for the lunch crowd, standing in front of the same broiler he has worked for nearly four decades. She takes orders at the register, does the scheduling and chats up customers.
“Why aren’t you retired?” they ask Rula regularly.
The first of their family came to America from Greece more than a century ago, the Deseret News said. John and Rula and their brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces own and operate seven restaurants, six of them in Salt Lake Valley. About 30 family members are in the business, and twice that number worked there over the years before moving on to other professions. It is a point of family pride that there is at least one family member — usually more — on the premises at every restaurant during business hours.
“Unless it’s your own blood and sweat, you’re not going to care as much,” says George, one of John and Rula’s three children.
And that is why John and Rula are still on the job.
“When you work for someone else, you leave the problems at work; it’s over when you go home,” Rula says. “When you own the business, you worry about it 24 hours a day. You care.”
They have never spent a nickel on advertising, relying instead on customers to do their advertising for them. Customers will tell you Crown Burgers’ offerings are the ultimate comfort food: fresh, thick hamburgers, onion rings and fry sauce that are made daily, a menu of about 100 items, including salads, fish, chicken and a mix of Greek cuisine.
There’s no heat lamp. Customers can watch John cook the food. Let Rula engage in a little more free advertising: “We use good meat, no fillers, and these are not skinny burgers.”
LDS missionaries have been known to come straight from the airport to Crown Burgers when they return. One Florida man showed up at the counter and said he needed 15 Crown Burgers to take to a board meeting — in Florida. Another out-of-state visitor said she had to take a Crown Burger on the plane back to her home at the request of her son. “It makes us feel good,” Rula says. John and Rula have so many loyal customers that many of them are like friends, which is another reason they are still goingto work every day.
“We should be retired,” Rula says. “We don’t have too many hobbies. And we kind of enjoy being here.”
Sitting in a booth at the restaurant, she looks around and says: “This is what I call living the dream. Coming to America and living the dream. We did that. We put in a lot of hard work. We’re not afraid to work. We’ll work all day long if we have to.”
The dream began to unfold when Rula’s father, Michael Katsanevas, left the Greek isle of Crete and came to America in 1910. He wound up fighting in World War I for the United States. After the war, he returned to Crete, and he and his wife, Maria, started a family that would total 10 children. During World War II, they were burned out of their home and hid in caves to escape the Nazis.
After World War II, there was little opportunity in a land that was recovering from so much devastation. Michael returned to America, this time with his three oldest children. He found work as a janitor at Hill Air Force Base and hoped to earn enough money to return to Greece with a nest egg. He decided instead to bring his family to America.
The family arrived in the United States the day after Christmas in 1954. Rula was 8 years old. Their arrival was chronicled by Time magazine in a story of immigrants seeking opportunity.
In 1963, John, one of seven children, showed up in the United States. In the early part of the 20th century, many Greeks came to work in the mines and on the railroads. John’s uncle Nicholos was one of them, and when one of his sons returned to Greece, he urged his cousin John to emigrate. The day after John arrived in Utah, he met Rula. Both of their families had come from the same village of Kambos. They married a year later.
John worked in a steel mill for a few years before Rula’s brother Jim persuaded him to move to California to open a burger restaurant together. The business gave birth to the family’s signature creation, the Pastrami burger, which would prove to be a hit in Salt Lake City. John returned to Utah, and a year later, in 1978, he and Rula’s brother, Nick, opened the first Crown Burgers.
“We did well immediately,” Rula says. “The people were lined up all the way outside the door.” Eighteen months later they tore down the restaurant and doubled the seating capacity to 150. John and Rula still work at that original store at 377 E. 200 South.
“I think it did so well because there really wasn’t a lot of burger places then,” Rula says.
These days John and Rula allow themselves the luxury of leaving work about 1:30 p.m. They have entrusted more and more of the business to their children and other family members.
“The kids are really good,” Rula says. “They look after things. It’s their legacy. If they don’t do well, they’re not going to have anything to do.”