Reflecting on his nearly 40 years of business, Mike Tsikoudakis spoke slowly and carefully, with a tear in his eye.
“(I’m) grateful forever,” he said about his customers. “They’re always going to be in my heart. And I’m going to miss them, but it was time for me to move on.”
Tsikoudakis, 72, and 68-year-old business partner Terry Vaidis are retiring and selling their Greek eatery Monaco Inn Restaurant at 962 S. Monaco St. Parkway. They opened it in 1986.
Pomodoro Pizza and Pasta, an Italian restaurant just across the Aurora border near Lowry, will be taking over the space for a second location, potentially as early as the month’s end.
“I just felt like (it was) my own dining room,” Tsikoudakis said.
Many years ago, he was a 16-year-old kid from Crete, a large island south of mainland Greece, visiting Denver on his uncle’s dime. His life became firmly intertwined with the city and the country from that point on, finding work in restaurants around town. Never as a chef, but as a bartender and manager.
Tired of shifting from job to job, he heard of an empty restaurant for sale and purchased it for $50,000.
“When we first opened, my gosh. I mean, I think one drink was $2.50,” Tsikoudakis said.
Steaks were $9, a gyro was $6. Now, those items cost $27 and $15.
For much of the restaurant’s existence, Monaco Inn served Mexican, Greek and American food, and operated seven days a week. Once the pandemic struck, Tsikoudakis and Vaidis pared back the menu — focusing on the Greek — and the hours, closing Sundays and between lunch and dinner.
On the decision to retire, “The body tells you,” Tsikoudakis said.
“We didn’t think that we were going to find somebody this fast. But these guys were recommended, believe it or not, by another customer,” he said.
Pomodoro is run by two Mexican families. In its tiny 1,150-square-foot storefront in a strip mall at 567 Dayton St., Luis Enriquez speaks of suffering from success.
“We get too busy and we lose a lot of customers … we don’t pay advertising here,” he said.
Since opening up Pomodoro with his wife Gloria and friend Blanco about two-and-a-half years ago, the trio have created a small community within its walls, they say. About 20 to 30 people come in for lunch, another 150 for dinner. After their first year, it became clear that more room was needed, so they started putting out feelers.
“It felt like the right fit,” Enriquez said of meeting Tsikoudakis.
The two restaurants expect to close on a deal soon. Pomodoro plans to keep the same menu — which includes a $23 chicken parm and a $13 baked manicotti — in the new spot. Blanco makes the pizzas, including his favorite, the Blanco, a white pizza.
Enriquez and Blanco spend most of their time in the kitchen, hovering around an old, giant oven that handles everything from pizzas to lasagnas. Gloria works the front of the house.
“We make a great team, a server and a chef,” Luis Enriquez said.
Luis Enriquez, like Tsikoudakis, came to the states from his home country as a teenager. He bounced from Italian restaurant to Italian restaurant in New York City before coming to Colorado about a decade ago, working for a time at Cherry Hills Country Club.
He and Blanco bounced the idea of starting a business together back and forth before finding the spot on Dayton.
“It was a hole here, holes in the wall. We made it brand new,” Enriquez said.
And though he hails from Mexico, a place of great cuisine and flavor, the chef sticks to making food he knows best: Italian.
“He’s gonna put a basil in the salsa,” his wife Gloria quipped.
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