San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
RESTAURANT HAS LEGAL LEGACY
Athens Market owner recognized for 50 years of welcoming lawyers and judges for meals, meetings, parties
The intimate, white-tablecloth dining room of the iconic Athens Market Taverna in downtown San Diego has long been the go-to hangout for the community of lawyers and judges who work at the state and federal courthouses a short walk away.
In fact, the law and the restaurant are tightly linked. The dining room is often the site of various functions for legal organizations, federal and state. The building itself, at the corner of F Street and
First Avenue, is jointly owned by the restaurant’s venerable owner, Mary Pappas, and lawyers Eugene Iredale, Maxine Dobro, Jan Ronis and Michael Pancer, who have their law offices on the upper floors. It’s also the site of many attorney news conferences and a raucous annual holiday party.
So it comes as perhaps no surprise that many of the attorneys who have celebrated, gossiped, negotiated and commiserated over plates of Greek food at tables inside gathered there Thursday to recognize Pappas for being in business for 50 years.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw presented Pappas with a certificate from the court and remarked that the restaurant has long been a gathering spot for city power brokers. “It’s where the business of the city gets done,” he said, “it’s where all manner of judges, lawyers and politicians come.”
Mayor Todd Gloria called Pappas a pioneer of downtown businesses and a “true pillar of the legal community” and presented a proclamation designating June 8 as “Athens Market Day” in the city. In a nod to the presence of prominent officials including District Attorney
Summer Stephan, Sheriff Kelly Martinez, former Sheriff Bill Gore, and San Diego Superior Court Presiding Judge Michael Smyth, Gloria turned to Pappas and said, “Mary, you got some juice.”
Pappas said she was grateful and more than a little surprised at the recognition.
“I don’t have any idea why they are doing it,” she said with a slight laugh. “I just am doing what I love to do.” Now 77 years old, Pappas said she has no plans to retire.
Pappas has been around long enough to watch Horton Plaza
across the street change from an open plaza to a famous, colorful shopping mall that declined, was shuttered, sold, and is now being rebuilt as an office complex. She has been there long enough to witness three courthouses built and one torn down. And she is still in the restaurant every day, taking a turn through the dining room and greeting newcomers and remembering the regulars, many of whom have been coming for decades.
One of those regulars is U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns, a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego for years before he became a judge. Burns has known Pappas since the 1980s and was the one who came up with the idea of recognizing her now.
Burns said the restaurant might be the oldest woman-owned business downtown. But more than that, he said Pappas has been a stalwart for the legal community. Bar associations for both state and federal court meet regularly there and are always welcome. “She has always been willing and always available to help,” he said.
While the restaurant is also popular with downtown office workers who don’t work in law firms and now a growing number of residents, it is the connection with the legal community that is strongest and runs deepest.
Pappas was an aspiring lawyer when she got into the restaurant business, she recalled.
In 1974, she was a law school student in San Diego. At the time, an aunt owned the business but was trying to sell it because she wanted to visit her son stationed in Japan on the Midway battleship, Pappas recalled. Months earlier Pappas had attended a Greek heritage festival where organizers were raffling off a car as a grand prize. Tickets were $50, and on the spur of the moment Pappas bought a ticket.
She won. But instead of taking the car, she took the money.
And months later, as her aunt searched for a buyer, Pappas decided that she would do it. She used the winnings from the raffle to purchase the business. She said goodbye to law school, and hello to a half-century of serving the law, in her own way.
“I did not become an attorney,” she said. “But I ended up feeding them all.”
The menu features Greek dishes like spanakopita and pastitso. Much of her staff have worked there for years in the kitchen, behind the small bar and in the dining room.
Pappas moved to the United States from a small town in Greece where her father owned the only restaurant.
She has four sisters, one of whom operated the popular Hillcrest restaurant California Cuisine for many years.
In the mid-1980s, Pappas moved Athens Market from E Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues to its current location, buying the building along with the lawyers (she owns half). Iredale, one of the attorneys, said Pappas turning away from being a lawyer worked out well.
“The legal profession’s loss was actually the legal profession’s gain,” he said. “Instead of feeding us arguments, she been feeding us delicious food for many years.”