Member-only story

Thanks to This Greek Family, Southern Californians Can Try a Truly Traditional Gyro Without Buying a Plane Ticket

Victoria Kennedy
4 min readDec 22, 2020

--

Apóla Restaurant

When Dimitri Kosmides first retired from life in the restaurant business, he believed he might finally get to relax. His two sons had other ideas.

Kosmides had raised the boys, Yianni and Stefano, in the business, lovingly putting them to work in the kitchen or at a cash register while they visited him in California during their summers off from school in Greece. Kosmides himself had grown up in his parents’ restaurant, which they’d nestled into a Greek farming village. When he moved to the States, he opened his own restaurant, in 1977, then spun off two dozen more. All the while, he traveled back and forth between the two countries to be there for his kids. So by the time Yianni and Stefano got to college, Kosmides sold his last restaurant and declared himself done.

But with two generations of restaurants in their blood, Yianni and Stefano wanted their turn. Not long after Kosmides “retired,” his boys pulled him back into the business to own and operate a high-volume fast food drive-thru. Today, that one restaurant has multiplied into nine.

Yianni Kosmides says proudly, “The locations generate revenues significantly above industry averages. Most have been featured in local media and food critic shows…

--

--

Victoria Kennedy
Victoria Kennedy

Written by Victoria Kennedy

Founder of Victorious PR. Getting Entrepreneurs in the Press.

No responses yet