Louie Pagonis, the original owner of Louie’s Manhasset Restaurant on Plandome Road, said he gradually moved away from the grill after his sons Tommy and Peter overtook ownership of the restaurant in 1989.
But Monday, Pagonis, now 73, was back behind the grill he helped turn into a Manhasset mainstay, in celebration of his restaurant’s 50th anniversary.
“When I gave the restaurant to my boys, I had taught them everything they knew in the kitchen,” Louie said. “I made sure they did the right things in there while also making sure they took care of people the way they’re supposed to. The people of Manhasset love us, and we wanted them to know that we love them, too.”
In celebration of the event, Louie’s cut prices on its breakfast menu in half and charged 50 cents for a cup of coffee. Decorations were hung on the restaurant’s walls, and old photos from when Louie himself first opened the place where framed and set at the front counter and near the dining area.
Longtime diners posed for photos with Louie, Tommy, 46, Pete, 43, and their brother-in-law Billy Georgas, 50, also a part-owner, and Nassau County Legislator Judi Bosworth presented the management team with a commemorative citation.
“Louie’s is really the heart of Manhasset,” Bosworth said. “It really is. To know that we’re taking our picture with the original Louie really says a lot about the staying power of this establishment.”
That staying power, Tommy Pagonis said, comes from the family’s dominance on Louie’s grill and the care they put into every meal.
“One of us, either myself of Pete or Billy, are always on the grill,” Tommy said. “We watch everything that goes on in there. And nothing’s ever frozen, the meats or anything like that. It’s always fresh.”
Over the years, Louie’s earned a reputation for being at the center of Manhasset life, Tommy said.
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, during which the Village of Plandome lost many residents, CNN cameras set up near Louie’s, interviewing the patrons as they grieved as a community.
“This restaurant is really unique because it is more of a family restaurant,” Tommy said. “We know our customers on a first-name basis, we know everybody’s family, and we really don’t even hire people who aren’t going to take the time to get to know the customers.”
Though Louie and his family did not settle in Manhasset – the family lives in Garden City – its founder said he is grateful for how welcoming the community was in accepting the family and helping him build a life after he emigrated to the United States.
“People in Manhasset are good people, they definitely helped me out a lot,” Louie said. “I was a boy when I came over here, and they’ve always taken care of me and my family as one of their own.”
Louie came to America from Greece in the early 1960s, when he was 17, and worked at the old Andy’s Luncheonette across the street on Plandome Road.
“You’d make ice cream and coffee and it was a very different restaurant than it is today,” Louie said.
In 1963, Louie bought Andy’s Luncheonette and named it after himself, and just like that, Louie’s Manhasset Restaurant was born.
By 1972, Louie’s lease on the restaurant had ended, and the restaurant relocated to its current location at 339 Plandome Road, where it has stood ever since.
“He was scared to death to move across the road because he thought the old place was the prime location,” Tommy said.
Tommy and Peter worked Saturdays when they were teenagers. Peter stayed continued to work at the restaurant while attending college at St. John’s University, while Tommy left the business to attend the University of Maryland and had a brief career on the New York Stock Exchange before going to culinary school and returning to the grill.
“When I was in high school, the restaurant always came first,” Tommy said. “If I had a Little League game or something and they needed another cook, I’d have to miss it and come into work.”
The brothers took over the restaurant in 1989 and turned Louie’s into an all-day eatery, expanding the hours to 4:30 a.m. until 9 p.m.
Louie’s is now synonymous with Manhasset eating, as the restaurant often caters many of the community’s events and even opens its doors earlier the night of the high school’s Senior Frolic, as many of the party-goers stop in for a bite after a night celebrating the tail-end of their teen years.
“Kids really do grow up with us,” Tommy said. “Generations of Manhasset kids come in here after the Senior Frolic alone. You see one kid, and then a few years later his brother or sister, and so on. It’s really gotten to be a tradition.”
Now, Tommy said the owners grooming the next generation of the restaurant’s management, as their own kids are starting to work as waiters and kitchen staff.
“We have so many of Louie’s grandkids working in here that we really don’t know who’s going to take care of the place after us,” Tommy said. “I have three kids, Pete’s got three kids, Billy’s got two, so it’s going to be interesting to see who wants in. We’re going to do all we can, though, to keep the place in the family.”
What does the future hold for Louie’s? Tommy said to ask again in another 50 years.
“To think, one restaurant gave three families a life, all because of my dad,” Tommy said. “He built quite a life for himself. Hopefully Louie’s will be around for 100 years and we’ll have a 100-year reunion.”