Business: Brothers share Bill’s Cafe success story.
Three Greek brothers share how they turned a neighborhood cafe into a string of beloved restaurants
With dishes and silverware clanking and the waitstaff breaking into a boisterous rendition of “Happy Birthday” to a loyal customer, the Zafiris brothers who own a string of Bill’s Cafes sat down for a not-so-quiet interview. George, 49, Peter, 47, and Jimmy, 46, have been in the restaurant business since they were children busing tables and washing dishes in Montreal,
Canada, where their father was a chef.
Over the past 13 years, they have turned the original Bill’s Cafe in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood into a chain of 10 from Fremont and Pleasanton to south San Jose, including two they have franchised to friends and relatives. With some 300 workers, they have delighted breakfast and lunch crowds that often line up for veggie skillets, Petaluma scrambles and Greek lemon soup.
On this winter day, with Jimmy busy at one of the restaurants, George and Peter — who grew up speaking French in school, English in town and Greek at home — told stories of their early years in San Jose, their deep ties to the landmark Flames restaurants, and their mother, Elena, who created quite a following, and a family ruckus, when she was hostess at the Bascom Avenue restaurant in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood.
We started with the obvious:
QWho is Bill?
GEORGE >> Bill Rizos was the original founder in 1977. He was a wonderful man, had a lot of charisma, family oriented, had his kids working in the business for years.
PETER >> My parents knew his parents from our small community — the Greek community at St. Nick’s church. That’s how we got our foot in the door. If it wasn’t for him vouching for us, knowing our parents very well, it would have been a struggle to get this place. The landlord didn’t want to give it to a bunch of young kids …
GEORGE >> … with no credit.
PETER >> So Bill guaranteed the lease for two years if we defaulted. Not many people would do that these days.
GEORGE >> And he stayed on board to make sure we were successful. Don’t forget we have a legend here — a name here to carry forward, so it was important for him to see the success of this.
PETER >> He still comes around to see us. Q What kind of work were you doing when you first came here?
PETER >> Produce delivery for the first year. We slowly went back to serving, became waiters. We worked at Flames (founded and later sold by the Tsigaris family). Our parents are from the same small town in Greece (Kyparissi). Our grandparents knew each other. My brother (Jimmy) married one of the daughters (Penny Tsigaris).
GEORGE >> They wished us well. They loved to see us succeed. They knew we were full-of-energy young guys. We had to do our own thing eventually. Q What’s the secret to your success?
GEORGE >> My answer first? Customer service. Number 1. Personality, caring, humbleness. You gotta be real.
PETER >> Care about your customers. They want to come back and see you.
GEORGE >> You give them love, they come back for love. We revamped from the old coffee shop-style of hot beef sandwiches and hot turkey sandwiches. Those came off. And we went to the more modern, more healthy options. Cleaner food.
PETER >> We decided everything would be fresh. We make our own potatoes. Q
At what point did you think, we have a good thing going here, let’s expand?
PETER >> We were butting heads, the three of us, and we needed to expand to separate ourselves. (Laughing) And our mom was the rooster of the pack who thought she knew everything and she tried to boss us around, in a nice way, you know? Q I love that. So your mom was involved?
PETER >> Mom was always around — but not until our second store at Bascom.
GEORGE >> Oh my god.
PETER >> Oh my god. As she got comfortable, she had her own ideas. That’s how we butted heads. So she would come and tell us what to do after we’ve been doing it for so long, if you know what I mean. Q So you were butting heads more with your mom than each other?
GEORGE >> Oh yes. Oh my goodness.
PETER >> My mom was vocal, extremely vocal. She was bossing everyone around when she was host there. We had to retire her early. (Laughing)
PETER >> Over at the Rose Garden, oh, everyone loved her there. Still today, they’ll come here and say, “How’s your mom, where’s your mom?” Q How do you keep staff in this market?
GEORGE >> It’s a challenge. Everyone in the industry is having complications with that, but we’ve been blessed with some good people. We bring them close and keep them here. We do that with our staff and the same thing with our customers.
PETER >> We treat them fairly, try to give them as much as we can. Some of our employees have been working with us from day one. Q How do the three of you brothers get along?
PETER >> Like all brothers, we have our moments. It’s not daggers. Greeks are vocal. We could be yelling at each other and the next day it’s like nothing ever happens. Just like with my mom. And we’re super close in age. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment. The garage with no insulation was my bedroom. Growing up through hardship together, as parents struggled to make ends meet, we felt the pain and it kept us close and taught us the importance of sticking together.
GEORGE >> Mom kept us in line. She still cooks for us. She says “I have food for you” — pastitsio and moussaka — she gives it to us in big trays to take home. Q How do you divide responsibilities?
GEORGE >> As we learned on the second and third stores, we learned what our best traits are. I took care of the books. Jimmy is mostly construction. Peter is daily operations. Q Do you plan to keep expanding?
PETER >> We’re paused right now, we need to slow down. We’re a little spread too thin. It’s hard to replace staff. And it’s getting harder out there.
GEORGE >> But you never know!