SFA | Projects | Birmingham Greek Oral Histories

I chose [to work in] the kitchen because—I guess, being the oldest son, I kind of want to follow my dad in that way. Because he used to cook. So I kind of learned from him and just kind of—I really enjoy it.
--Pete C. Hontzas

Gus Hontzas came to the states from Greece and landed in Jackson, Mississippi, where his uncle, John Hontzas, had a restaurant called John’s. When the Hontzas family opened up the Niki’s restaurants in Birmingham (Niki’s Downtown opened in 1951 and Niki’s West opened in 1957), Gus headed to the Magic City to run Niki’s West. Gus passed away in 2001, but his sons, Pete and Teddy, run the place today. The cafeteria line at Niki’s West is legendary. Mid-morning you can find folks in line, piling their plates high with some of the freshest and most colorful vegetables in Birmingham. And if the cafeteria line isn’t your style, they also have an a la carte menu where you’ll find even more fresh seafood, steaks and a few traditional Greek dishes. Most folks who pass in front of the steam table at Niki’s West might be surprised to know that there was a lounge in the back of the place in the old days. And evidently, the lounge (and yes, Mrs. Hontzas confirmed it, there was a go-go dancer involved) was where part of the expanded kitchen is today. If those walls could talk!

Edited Transcript

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: Pete C. Hontzas, co-owner
Date: March 9, 2004 @ 10:00 a.m.
Location: Niki’s West
Interviewer: Amy Evans

Amy Evans: Okay Mr. Hontzas, if you wouldn’t mind stating your name and your age?

PH: Uh, Pete C. Hontzas. Age thirty-eight.

Okay. And your grandfather—from what I understand—came to Birmingham in the early—

PH: Came to New Orleans.

New Orleans? Okay. Can you tell us that story a little bit?

PH: Uh, w—from what I can remember, uh, he went to New Orleans in the late—maybe early twenties and, uh, opened a restaurant [doesn’t know the name of it] up in New Orleans. And, uh, made a little money and went back to, uh, Greece.

Where in Greece did he come from?

PH: Uh, Lethulnethion.

Any idea how to spell that?

PH: No. [Laughs]

Okay. [Laughs] I’ll look it up. Um, so he came to make some money and then take the money back to his family? Is that—

PH: That’s correct.

Okay. And then, how did your father get to come to Birmingham?

PH: He sent, uh, my father, which was Gus, over to the states. Of course my grandfather had a brother living here already, so my dad stayed with him in, uh, Jackson, Mississippi, and that’s where my dad learned the [short pause] restaurant business, so to speak.

Okay, and what were all of their names? Your uncle and your father and your grandfather?

PH: My grandfather was m—named—I’m named after my grandfather [Pete], and my uncle’s name was John, John Hontzas. And my dad’s name is Gus Hontzas.

Okay, And the restaurant in Jackson? Was that John’s restaurant?

PH: John’s restaurant—[called] Johnny’s restaurant, yeah.

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yanni1 Do you know how they got to be in the restaurant business?

PH: [Short pause] Let me s—let me make this statement without having to be stereotypical, most Greeks are in the restaurant business—in those days. I--I’ll leave it at that. Let you all figure that one out! [Laughs] But—but I don’t mind, now. I don’t—that’s—that’s part of my heritage.

Right. Well, I’ve been getting from some people that it’s an easy way to bring people over from Greece and have them learn a—a business and--and hire family members and—

PH: I—as far as early immigrants? It probably was…‘Cause, uh, certain immigrants, like the Italians that owned the grocery stores, and the—the Jewish people are known for their jewelry and the clothing stores—they’re just—some made—once somebody got started they all kind of followed.

Sure. And your father—from John’s restaurant in Jackson—

PH: Right.

How did he make it over to Birmingham?

PH: Uh, good question. What I can recollect, that, uh, [short pause] his, uh—my dad—my grandfather’s sister, which was named Margaret Callas, had two places opened up. And then Niki’s Downtown on 2nd Avenue. And they opened the place up here, and they let their nephews [short pause] operate each business. So my dad was given the opportunity to operate this place here. And the other nephews were all given the opportunity to run the one downtown. [Short pause] And that’s how they got started. [Pete later explained that the Niki’s restaurants were named after Margaret and Johnny Hontzas’s daughter Niki.]

And this restaurant opened when?

PH: In fifty-seven.

Okay, and what was it like then?

PH: A hole in the wall. [Laughs]

Yeah?

PH: That’s all it was. Just a stopping place for somebody to come eat some vegetables—very few vegetables—and, uh, just a meeting place. That’s all. Basically it was just a—a truck stop or—you can call it that or—of course, we’re close to the Farmer’s Market, so a lot of the farmers would come down here and eat, and it was just a very quaint little place—very little.

When it was opened, was there anything on this property before? Was it a restaurant before or was it built and then established as Niki’s West?

PH: It was built as a—a—a—my dad—a doctor had owned some land around here, and my dad bought the land from my—from this doctor [short pause] which I don’t have his name. But, uh, he, uh, sold it to my dad just built on the business as time went on.

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yanni1 Did he purposely, um, find the property near the Farmer’s Market and the produce stands and whatever, or was that--?

PH: No, it’s just, uh—the place was here, and they just kind of just had a vision that this would be a good place, and since it’s off the interstate and, uh, close to downtown without having to be downtown, that people could come all—from all directions. Centrally located to—to—to where Birmingham and the people lived at the time. Because at that time, south of Birmingham was farmland, so everybody either lived north, west or east of Birmingham. So that’s why he just—kind of picked this place here.

Okay. Were there any—or have there ever been any other restaurants in the area?

PH: Uh, there’s a restaurant down the street called, uh—two--about two blocks down—called the Smoke House. My dad’s brother runs that.

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Okay. Um, and you were born in Birmingham I gather.

PH: Yes.

And you have a brother.

PH: Teddy.

Do you have any sisters?

PH: One sister, Margo.

Okay. And you’ve been in the restaurant business all of your life?

PH: [Laughs] Form the time I can remember—six, seven, eight years old—every summer bussing tables, washing dishes.

Yeah. So you grew up in the restaurant, huh?

PH: Grew up. It’s like—it is my home, basically.

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Okay. And I remember when I visited here with you before with John T., you were talking about, um, some story about a—a go-go room or a club in the back?

PH: Well in those days, again, you know, those, uh—that was, uh, one of the, uh, fortes of Birmingham was, uh, lounges. That was it in Birmingham. You had the restaurant, but the main thing, we had—and—and—during the s—especially during the sixties, the lounge was the biggest asset to a business—or restaurant—so-called restaurant bar or whatever you want to call it—was the biggest asset to a business was a lounge.

Lounge meaning alcohol?

PH: Alcohol.

And entertainment?

PH: And entertainment, yes. Or—however you want to define--

Okay, okay.

PH: --everything, that’s up to you.

[Laughs]

PH: But that was—that was part of it. You know, that’s just the way it was. It’s—Niki’s Downtown [it’s] the same way. A lot of places in downtown Birmingham. More so in downtown Birmingham, but that was just a way of life in those days.

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And I also remember you said that your father would stay open for the truckers in the snow.

PH: My d—we used to stay open twenty-four hours a day.

yanni1 My goodness.

PH: We would stay open from at—I don’t know exactly when they started cutting the hours down. And then we’d stay open to twelve, then it came down to eleven, and then it came down to ten. Now it’s down to nine-thirty, you know.

And you open at six a.m. I see.

PH: Yeah. Used to be open—used to open at five in the summertime. Of course, in summertime you have all the farmers coming in early. And they want breakfast, so you try to—you know, just try to make the extra dollar. In those days a dollar was hard to come by. You had to do everything to make the dollar. And you had to save a lot more than we do now. We--we take for granted—we—you know, that the dollar’s going to be there and we don’t—especially our generation.

Yeah.

PH: We take for granted it’s going to be there. Those days—it wasn’t—it—it—you had to work like hell to get a dollar. Now we just expect a dollar. You know.

Can you talk a little bit more about that? The--the first generation of Greek—Greek’s to be born in Birmingham and the restaurant business and the work ethic and maybe how things have changed over the years?

PH: Uh [short pause] The parents themselves—the ones who come over—of course, my mom was born in—in the states. She was born in the states but, uh—since my--

What’s her name?

PH: Betty. Betty Hontzas. And, uh, her, uh—uh—uh, but where you have a first generation like my dad and—and the other people, you know, they see an opportunity they didn’t have in Greece in those days. To excel. That’s why my grandfather said—to my dad [he] goes, “You—you—your better off going over there and making something of yourself than staying here.” Which was Greece, of course. Um, so they’re a little tougher. They [short pause] they were not—I think they were respected, but they weren’t liked by a lot of people. [Short pause] Different groups of people. That’s just, you know—the—the climate of those days. So they had to work and sacrifice a lot, but they were very tough people. And, of course, now when we grew up--my generation grew up—we were expected to do what my dad could do. You know, he’s—I think they put the—those—those type people put you on a pedestal. And you’re supposed to obtain it. Either match them or do better. So it’s a lot harder for a person—second generation to work under a first generation father.

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Well and, um, let me also ask you, what year did your father pass?

PH: He passed away January thirtieth, two thousand one. And it’s been different.

Yeah, how so?

PH: Well, you [short pause] you miss him. Even though he was hard on you, you still miss him. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think about him. You know, and we have cooks here—been here a long time and people who’ll work with him and they, you know, they ask me about—they still miss him. They just, you know, it was Niki’s.

Was he always out here in the dining room with customers?

PH: Actually, he started in the kitchen and then as the business evolved he—he kind of—not really wanting to come out of the dining room. He’d rather be in a kitchen. He always believed that was more important than the little knickknacks of a dining room manager. Which it is to me too. I’d just as—you know, because of the, uh—you know, people come to a restaurant for food first, obviously.

So your father was a good cook?

PH: Not—but he learned under a chef. Actually a German chef, when he was working at John’s in, um, Jackson.

Really?

PH: It was a German chef, yeah…That’s where he learned it…Yeah, cooking—cooking today is not—it’s gotten too, uh, specialized. Uh, you know—it’s—it’s—it’s gotten—there are some old tricks of the trade that—that I kind of learned from my dad, which you can’t use anymore because of health conscious people…But, uh, there are some good tricks to learn though.

Like—what? Can you—

PH: Well, use--like when you carve ham you take the bone, the fat and all that? Put it in the greens and peas and beans and all that. You don’t throw nothing—in other words, in a business like we have, you don’t throw nothing away. It can be used again somewhere down the line. But since people are health conscious now, you throw that bone in there and the ham—the fatback and all that and cholesterol levels go up. [Throws hands up in the air for emphasis] You know, cooking really to me has, uh, changed—really a lot in the last ten years. It’s changed like every ten years—just major changes. But, uh, we’ve had to be more conscious. My dad was smart enough to change. I don’t think he really wanted to change a lot of things, but I think he was really smart enough to know that if you don’t change then [short pause] older people are not going to come, younger people don’t come because they know their cholesterol levels—“Oh, I eat at Niki’s every day so—that’s got to be the problem so--” I—Sometimes change is not all for the best.

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the food that you serve here? I mean, you’re known for your vegetables.

PH: Vegetables—we—we have, you know, ten entrees every day. Uh, which about four or five change daily, and we keep two or three every day. Uh, vegetables, pretty much the same every day. We’ve got forty different varieties if you include the salads and the pasta salads and the fruit and all that. We—we charge them like a vegetable. Uh, all our bread’s homemade, all our pies and desserts are homemade. And if that’s not good enough for you, you can go order off the menu. Go—we serve fresh seafood like snapper—whole snapper, whole flounders, fresh scallops, fresh grouper. Everything’s fresh. Nothing frozen.

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yanni1 [Laughs] Are there some items on the menu or on the steam table that y’all are particularly known for that maybe your father started?

PH: I’d like to say all of them, really.

Yeah.

PH: I mean everybody likes—you know, everybody has—everybody loves our fried tomatoes. If you ask, people love the collard greens, love the turnip greens—they just like to food. The rutabagas, that’s another famous thing everybody loves. And I—it really just depends upon the individual. I—I—a—as long as we’re getting more compliments and only one or two complaints, you can’t go wrong.

Yeah.

PH: I mean, everybody likes all of it. They appreciate it—having the fresh vegetables—because so many places try to, uh, skim around all that. I guess because of labor or they just don’t know any better, one of the two. But uh, we aim--mashed potatoes, we peel our own mashed potatoes, you know. It’s—the old way of doing things.

Are you in the kitchen as well?

PH: I don’t know how to answer this one! [Laughs] Unfortunately, yes…Sometimes. Sometimes, it’s just great. It really is. Uh, Friday and Saturday nights I cook, and Teddy manages the dining room. And that’s probably a good thing because sometimes they can get out of line and, uh, he--he’s better able to smooth things over, where I’m going to let somebody know something—the way I feel, so that’s probably why I—I just stay back there. I think I’m—a lot of reason why I did it? I chose the kitchen because—I guess, being the oldest son, I kind of want to follow my dad in that way. Because he used to cook. So I kind of learned from him and just kind of—I really enjoy it though.

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Well lets talk about your clientele a little bit here. Um--

PH: Wow!..They’re very diverse, you might say. [Sniffs] Uh, you get a—you get a—you get a farmer, and you get a doctor and the same—you get councilmen, you get congressmen, you get uh—had the governor a few times. You get pastors, priests, lawyers, accountants, white collar, blue collar. It’s just, uh, like a melting—like America itself, it’s a melting pot.

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How about the Southern influence in—in the restaurant here? Being a Greek-owned business.

PH: Uh, well. [Short pause] I think it’s where you live. What you can serve. I mean, how would I—I would venture to say that most people across the Mason-Dixon line would appreciate a place like this than them coming down here and trying to open a restaurant. At least I would. And I think most folks—most people from across the Mason-Dixon line really love this place. They—they don’t—they can’t gather—they can’t fathom all the—the food, you know. They’re just used to—usually, I can pick them out of a crowd: mashed potatoes, English peas and carrots.

[Laughs]

PH: That’s all they know. You know—we had some guys—especially—I like to mess with them. You know, they’ll go, “What—what—what’s that?” I go, “You’re--” I go and I tell them—you know, they’ll be right in the middle of the line and it may be busy, and I’ll go, “You’re not from Birmingham, are you?” I go, “I can tell. Don’t worry. I’m going to help you out.” I’ll tell them, “Get your fried okra, get you a little collard greens. You don’t like it, send it back and I’ll give you something to—you know, that you’re used to having.” You know.

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Well, can you say a couple of words about the Greek community here? Because there’s a really strong, um, Greek community from what I cans see and from what I’ve heard.

PH: Uh [short pause] Let’s put it like this: they have five different—they had five minds, but like Mr. Gus told me at Pete’s Famous, they have five minds but eight different ways of doing everything. [Laughs] That’s about—like I say, very—it is strong. Uh, it’s like any other immigrant, uh, people coming to a new country. You know, they try to stick together and—but, uh, as we go in time now, and the years pass by, you’re seeing that diversify a little bit. And it’s not maybe as strong as it should be. I don’t know if that’s a good—good way of putting it. It’s not as strong as it should be, but is that good or bad, we don’t know. But it’s nice to have a good community with your family, your friends that are Greek, you know.

Um-hmm.

PH: And that’s something that our generation probably lacks a little bit than the past generations do. And we’re trying to obtain that, but we just have a little—as a matter of fact, my cousins—all my—all the Hontzas cousins—we all got together Sunday, and we’re going to try to do that about once a month. And that’s something we should have been doing a long time ago, it just—with the wordly cares of life we forget about these things.

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