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Interviews and photographs by Amy Evans.
This project sponsored by a grant from Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q
Zoe's Kitchen
1927 29th Ave. South
Birmingham, AL 35209
(205) 870-1100
www.zoeskitchen.com
I got a lot from my grandmother that
lived here, who was born in Greece. She did all the kind of stuff… gardening
and saving seeds and cutting up old coats and making, you know, clothes
for her children. --Zoë Cassimus
Zoë Proferis Cassimus has been surrounded by the food business all her life. Her father had the legendary John’s restaurant in downtown Birmingham, her cousins still have Kontos Produce (a family business for almost a century), and her husband’s family used to own a grocery store on 6th Avenue North. Obviously then, it is really no surprise that Zoë would make a name for herself and her style of food. Her mothers cooking style and philosophy on nutrition was the primary inspiration for her popular café, incorporating traditional Greek ingredients like olive oil and feta cheese. After years of cooking for friends and some prodding by her family, she opened Zoë’s Kitchen in 1995. In the short time since, Zoë’s has become synonymous with outstanding and simple food that just happens to be healthy. Her success has been multiplied by the involvement of her son, John, who is overseeing Zoë’s Kitchen as a franchised restaurant concept. Even with stores as far away as Phoenix, the original Zoë’s is as comfortable and as personal as if you were eating in her kitchen at home.
What follows is a portion of the original interview that
has been edited for length. To
download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click this link. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
Subject: Zoë Cassimus, owner
Date: March 11, 2004 @ 4:00 p.m.
Location: Zoë’s Kitchen (Homewood location)
Interviewer: Amy Evans
Amy Evans: [Just] briefly, if you could tell us the history of, um, your father’s [John Proferis] involvement in the restaurant business. When he came to the states or if he was born here.
Zoë Cassimus: No, he was born in Greece.
Okay.
And, uh—he came—he was born in nineteen—he was born in 1899. And he came when he was a teen—young teenager—and worked in New York and then found his way down to Birmingham in—in his early twenties and just worked in different restaurants and [short pause] At one time he was in Pennsylvania because his sister was there for a time, but then he ended up in Birmingham permanently.
Um-hmm.
And, uh, worked in different restaurants. And then had his first restaurant called The Casino, which was, uh, on 20th Street in downtown Birmingham and had that up until the war [World War I] started. And then, during the war, he had the concession at the dynamite plant in Childersburg [city southeast of Birmingham]. And after the war, he came back to—well he li—we always lived here. And in the—about 1944, opened John’s [Restaurant] in downtown Birmingham—21st Street. And it was just an overnight success because he had the reputation from the other restaurant but—He was the first person to have fresh fish in the city. And it was not—it had—had—it was not a Greek restaurant. It was never—there was never anything in there that, um, with the name “Greek” in it, other than a Greek salad and then when he started doing Greek-style fish. He was the first person to do that, which was just olive oil, lemon and oregano. But that was it. He never did Greek lamb or anything. No Greek food, so—he’s never—he would never—never had a Greek restaurant.
Um, let me ask you, where in Greece did he come from?
He came from, um, um—well—it’s called Leunithian, but it’s in Sparta.
Okay. And did he come by himself—
Came by himself.
--when he came to the states?
With a nametag on.
Yeah. Do you know how he made it to Birmingham? Was somebody else here?
No, I don’t.
Okay.
Just word of mouth got out that the South was the place to be. [Short pause] It--my mother never—we never really wrote a lot of it down.
------
My mother was born—my mother’s from Greek parents—but was born in Birmingham.
Okay. And what is her name?
Cleo. And her maiden name was Kontos. Uh, they were in the, uh, produce business--
Okay. Yes, I’m familiar with—
--and in bananas.
--Kotos Produce. It’s still—
Um-hmm.
--in existence over on—
Yeah, they still own it.
--Finley Avenue. And then, that reminds me, I asked your husband, Marcus—before you arrived here—your last name, Cassimus, all the research that I’ve been doing, Cassimus is the name of the first—alleged first Greek immigrant to Birmingham. Do you know that there’s—
Right, we knew that, but we’re not related.
------
Okay. Got it. And so, John’s restaurant. What kind of restaurant was that when it first opened? Was it a fine dining--
Just fine dining.
Okay.
White tablecloths at night and –but—but open for lunch. And with, you know, just Formica tables, waitresses, you know, wine and liquor and—but—just packed from morning until night. For like lunch we—they gave out numbers. I mean, people were just lined up from the first day they opened…And they’d have a little lull in the afternoon. Say, between two and five. And then it started again from five to ten. [Scraping sound coming from the kitchen] And they were never open on Sundays.
And can you speak a little bit to what downtown Birmingham was like during that time?
It was just--in the fifties, when I was a little girl, it was incredible. My—uh, Dad worked at night, so my mother and I—I’m an only child—my mother and I would like ride the bus downtown so that, you know, we wouldn’t have another car and ride home with him. And we’d just walk around downtown, go to the movie at the Alabama Theater and then walk up to John’s and eat dinner w—with him and--Especially on weekends—on Friday and Saturday.
Uh-huh.
And just—got—it was just like—everybody kind of just knew everybody and, um--well, we all kind of lived in the same area. We moved from Norwood to Homewood [suburbs of Birmingham]. And, I mean, I still have people that come in here that ate in John’s as kids, remembering my father coming around cutting their steak and tasting it, making sure it was right and—just a—he—he just—he ran the—he didn’t work in the kitchen. He ran—he was out front. But the food was unbelievable. He just had all original recipes. Kind of like I s—did with my concept. He had like homemade shrimp gumbo that nobody’s ever been able to even come close to. He had this French—homemade, uh, French dressing that he did on the John’s slaw that—it was an original recipe that, uh, I still have. We sold the rights to John’s slaw when the first people bought John’s.
Uh-huh.
The first people we sold it to in seventy-two? And then his—those people are dead, but their son’s have taken over the recipe and are mass-producing it in grocery stores, but it’s not a—it’s not even the—similar to what the original dressing was…But nobody knows how to do it but me.
------
Yeah. Did the restaurant change hands when your father passed? Or before that?
No, we sold it before he died. Because my husband didn’t want to do it.
------
It’s—it’s still around. I don’t even know who—I haven’t—I don’t even know who owns it. It’s changed hands a couple of times.
Yeah, that’s what I hear.
And they still have a rel—you know, most people in Birmingham know, you know, that we haven’t had anything to do with it since 1972 but—they still have the original—you know, they try to do that slaw, they still do this—this Trout Almondine dish that my dad invented, and they still do cornbread and the sweetrolls. I understand they do, but I-- like I say, I haven’t been there.
Um-hmm. Well, in that interim from the mid-seventies to when you opened Zoë’s in ninety-five, was your family in a restaurant at all or—
Oh, uh-uh. No, I never worked and we never did any—I mean, my husband’s in the insurance business, and I just cooked for everybody and everybody’s party, you know, just for fun. And I always had big parties at my house. I did a lot of cooking down at my church. And grad—and—just in growing up around—around the—around food and around, uh, [short pause] the food business, you just kind have a—you know, a gift. It’s really a gift. You just can’t make yourself—make yourself do it.
Hmm.
Uh, one other thing I was going to say, that I—like, you mentioned Jimmy Koikos [owner of The Bright Star in Bessemer, Alabama]? Well, Jimmy Koikos and—had gotten—always came to Daddy for advice. And, of course, Connie Kanakis, who used to have Connie Kanakis’s, who’s moved. He was big buddies with Daddy. And the Eli Stevens, who owns Lloyd’s [restaurant], and then the Stevens that own the bakery—he—the—their—their parents—Eli’s parents were my parents best friends and—so it’s kind of like a close kind of a thing. And, uh—
------
And what is your—just a brief kind of lineage of your father’s—or your husband’s family, pardon me.
Uh, well, I think when his father first came from Greece, he also was in the restaurant business. And then—at La Paree, I think. And then, they—he ended up owning a small grocery store, like a mom and pop kind of thing, down, uh, on 6th Avenue North. My husband’s—they still own the property, but they sold the business.
------
I’ll tell you how I got interested in food. Well, because my parent—my mother was, uh [short pause] real well educated and into nutrition. And so she really was –she did—my dad cooked some at home, but she was really interested in the nutritional side of food. And my father was fat, and my mother was tall and skinny, so she knew all this stuff about fat cells. So, I never had any—I never had any fried food, I never had any sweets. Never any candy, any—any soft drinks.
That’s hard in the South! [Laughs]
Nothing cooked with anything but like steamed with olive oil. So I was like doing all the stuff that people are doing now. I mean, I was just raised like that.
Well, I know tha—that was something that was so striking when I visited the Zoë’s Kitchen website, is that you h—you’ve hired a nutritionist who’s on staff, and you’re—
Right.
--really conscious about your ingredients.
Well, what happened, when I—when I first—my husband talked me into doing it because—I—the children—I mean, we got married young, and the children were gone, and I was—I mean, I’m not really, um, you know, a club kind of person, so [short pause] He just said, “I think you need to do this and just do it small and just be like a hobby.” Well, we never thought—really thought it would do what it—what it did. But I—when I’d said it, I knew that I would never have anything fattening or fried or hamburgers, but I also knew that if I used the word “low-fat” or “healthy,” that I’d scare a lot of people off. Because—especially men. They would think that, uh, you were—had a tearoom. So that—so I—I designed the menu with that in m—mind. Because that’s the way we--you know, we eat at home. And, um, eventually, people just discovered for themselves that it was low-fat and healthy and—and then my husb—my son [John Cassimus] is the one that picked up on the nutrition end of it and doing the food—you know, the food triangle and—
------
The time is right. And I know you’re known for your chicken salad. Are there other signature items that you’re—
Well, the chicken salad and then our—our slaw is like the most popular thing.
Is it the same as your father’s?
No, we don’t do that. We do a—a—it’s just a vinaigrette with, uh [sort pause] just little green onion and feta and ha—and shredded cabbage.
Um-hmm. So you have some more Greek kind of influenced items—
Yeah. Well, we—
--on your menu?
--our Greek salad, and then our Greek salad with grilled chicken, and then—the—the chicken is definitely seasoned with Greek seasoning because it’s just lemon, olive oil and oregano and salt and pepper. So that is. But—you know, the average person, if you ask them if they go to Zoë’s, they would not say it was a Greek restaurant.
Right.
Because, you know, we don’t have lamb, we don’t have any meat. All we have is chicken, and then we have a turkey sandwich and a ham sandwich and then everything—everything is basically from chicken.
Well, are the Greek items inspired by things—because you made them at home, or—
Yes. I’ll tell you--
--are they because you’re consciously—
No, they were—they’re all inspired from home. Like—like the, um, Greek quesadilla is basically a simplified version of a spanakopita [Greek spinach pie].
------
There’s a photograph of your father grilling some chicken on a galvanized bucket.
Isn’t that funny?
That’s a great photograph.
He used—
It’s really great.
I think it’s—I think it’s lamb. But anyway, he, uh—John chose this incredible design firm in Columbus, Ohio, that came up with all that.
It’s gorgeous.
And we’re real—I’m real happy with it. When I heard they were getting rid of my chicken? It was like…I was like, “Are you crazy?”
[Laughs]
You know, it’s like somebody saying you’re going to shave your baby’s curls!”
[Laughs]
But then, I mean I’m not—I’m—I’ve always—I’m always open for discussion and don’t think—I mean, I’m not a—know-it-all. You know, especially when he said, “We’ve got to have a look that when you go into the place—when you’re next to Starbuck’s, and you’re next to Panera [Bakery], people that drive by have got to say, ‘I want to go in there,’” you know. We didn’t want to do anything flashy, but he knew that, when you’re in that competition, and you’re in that kind of rent—of that area, where you’ve got that kind of competition? You’ve got to have something that’s going to get them in there, and we feel that once people taste our food, it doesn’t matter what the place looks like, they’re coming back. But once you—you’ve got to have—you’ve got to have—and people do like to be in a—in an attractive place.
Sure.
They don’t mind it here [at the original Zoë’s, which is a tiny little neighborhood café], you know, because they’re used to it…I mean, I’ve had people tell me—I—that they love the ambiance in here, and I say like, “What ambiance?”
------
Well, was, uh, the franchising basically your son’s idea? Did that all come—
Yeah. I mean, I—yeah. I had—he asked me--when we knew what a success it was, if I wanted to open up another store, and I said, “No. I’m just not interested.” I—I mean, I’m in my sixties, and I just don’t want to work—like when I first started, I said, “I’m not working at night, I’m not working on weekends, and if I don’t make any money, I don’t care. I’ll quit.”
------
But d—all the food—like I say, I’m not known as a Greek restaurant, but we do mod—everything like the Greek—the soup—our chicken soup and orzo soup? You know, the original recipe has like raw eggs in it and it’s foamy. Have you ever had it?
[Shakes head]
It’s called Avgolemono? Well, I wasn’t—like I say, I wasn’t going to fool with anything hazardous, so I didn’t—I make--I make the chicken soup without eggs. It’s just--but it is basically kind of a modification of Greek e—Greek egg lemon soup. But it’s just, you know, whole chickens with [short pause] vegetables and orzo.
What do you think your father would say about your success at Zoë?
I think he would absolutely like, just be blown away. And we—I also moved into the house that my parents bought in the forties. And we’ve redone it, you know, with real pretty gardens and a new kitchen and—I mean, he’d just be—I don’t know. He--I—it just—and then my mother, you know, was so interested in food. It—it’s just—like—when we used to do like ladies luncheons, and we’d do like chicken salad, and I always wanted to do these big beautiful lettuce leaves, and she’d say, “Why don’t you do shredded lettuce? No one eats lettuce leaves.” And, I mean, she died without me ever having shredded lettuce under a chicken salad plate because I wanted the big fancy lettuce leaves. Well, when I did this restaurant, I did shredded lettuce.
------
My, um, at—I mean, I got a lot from my grandmother that lived here, who was born in Greece. She did all the kind of stuff like Martha Stewart’s grandmother did, like gardening and saving seeds and cutting up old coats and making, you know, clothes for her children. Because she—my mother was one of nine. And then my—I have cookbooks that my mother had bought when she was like, a teenager. Because she—but my grandmother was an excellent cook. And she made cakes and stuff from no recipes.
What was your grandmother’s name?
Stella. Kontos.
------
Uh-huh. Um, well to back up a little bit more just for a second, do you remember, um, growing up and going downtown and spending some time in some other restaurants that were downtown? Maybe—
The only one that I ever—well, the—I remember the Bright Star because Jimmy Koikos’s sister was my best friend, and I used to go to Bessemer all the time so—
Uh-huh.
And her—his parents were my parents’ friends, and I’ve been in there all my life…And then, I was at the La Paree a lot in the fif—in the—maybe middle to late fifties.
Okay.
And—but I don’t remem—I don’t—I remember the lamb and [short pause] and that’s about it. And, uh, of course the Bright Star, we went out—we went out there a lot on Sunday, you know, and ate—and a--family kind of thing. We’d all sit together and—before you could have liquor on Sunday, Mr. Koikos used to fix Daddy a drink in a coffee cup and—
[Laughs]
[Laughs] Um, but those are really the only two—of course, I—you know, there’s never really been a Greek restaurant in Birmingham. Quote, “A Greek Restaurant.” There’s never been one. That just serves—you know, like Greek restaurants in other—in big cities.
------
Well, is there a note you’d like to end on? Or something you’d like to add that I haven’t asked you?
I just take this as like, [short pause]—it’s just been a gift…I mean, we—the—it’s just been an absolute gift because I have so many people that thank me…Thank me for being here and it’s just [Zoë starts getting choked up]—and, um, I mean, I love it. I mean, like people say, “Why do you work so hard?” Well, I don’t really work that hard. You know, I still get to go to the gym every day and, um, I probably, you know, won’t ever quit.
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