With the passing of Niko Nousiadis, founder of Niko’s Italian Cuisine, April 23 was a sad day for foodies in Owensboro. Since so many people in Owensboro have shared stories and reminisced about Niko since his passing, it seems appropriate to remember Niko’s passion for food in our dining guide.
“He treated everyone like family. People say it feels more like a home than a restaurant in here. That’s because of him,” says, Christo Nousiadis, Niko’s younger son, who now runs the restaurant with his older brother, Spiro, and mother, Lola.
Employees say the family atmosphere is part of the culture of the restaurant. “That’s just the way it is here, it’s not just with the three of them, it’s with all the staff and even the customers,” says manager Jack Rickard. “We try to remember customer’s names. We take time to talk with them. We want their experience to feel like a family dinner.”
Each morning since Niko’s passing, Spiro and Christo start their mornings with a cup of coffee near a large painting of their father’s smiling face, which now hangs in a corner of the main dining room, perfectly captured by Aaron Kizer.
Growing up in Greece, the Nousiadis brothers remember Niko cooking all the time. “Every night after coming home from work, he was in the kitchen making some huge spread. We always had friends coming over. It was just food all the time,” Christo said.
After making the move to the U.S. in 2002, Niko decided to follow his passion and open a restaurant.
Niko didn’t just love cooking – he lived it. His home was filled with cooking books and magazines. Lola says that more often than not, even the TV was set to cooking shows. “I would say to him ‘Can’t you get enough? You cook all day and come home and watch cooking at night!’ But he would say back to me ‘You never know what you might see. There may be just one thing I might learn and try.’ He was always hoping for that one thing.”
He even dreamed about cooking.
One of Christo’s favorite stories is the time Niko dreamed up the recipe for his shrimp Tabasco appetizer in the middle of the night. As the story goes, Niko came in the restaurant the next morning, tried it out, and started serving it that day. “People loved it! It became one of our best sellers 12 years straight,” Christo said. “Probably 80% of our customers order it. But, dreaming up recipes? I said ‘Dad I think you need a vacation!’ ”
The boys learned to cook under the watchful eyes of their father. Spiro started working at the restaurant right out of high school. “He had a good teacher,” Lola admits. “Spiro learned by taste, like his father. He can taste any recipe and tell you what it needs… and he’s always right.”
Niko was fond of saying he was not a chef; he was just a cook. “That’s how we do it here; we go by taste, not recipes. Dad didn’t follow recipes. He cooked by taste. And that’s how he taught us,” Christo recalled.
Spiro always knew he’d follow in his father’s steps. But Christo had to come to the restaurant in his own time. He says he didn’t want to join his father and brother at the restaurant at first, but anytime he tried another job, his mind kept drifting back to Niko’s. “I grew up around it. I knew it,” he explained. But when Christo came back and told his father he decided to work in the family business, Niko handed him a mop. “I told him I wanted to help keep the books and work on finances, and he said ‘great’ and told me to start cleaning. I know now that it was just a test. He wanted me to learn everything about the business.”
It paid off.
Spiro, Christo, and Lola know all aspects of the business. “We work as a team. There are no roles. That’s small business,” says Lola. “We all know how to keep books. We all know how to cook. We all know how to clean,” Christo added.
They also had to learn how to plate the food just right. The food not only had to taste great; it also had to look perfect. Christo remembers having to re-plate many dishes. “If we didn’t have them exactly right, he would make us do it over again.”
But eventually, Spiro, and later Christo, were given more and more freedom to make decisions and take more responsibility. “Without us knowing it, he taught us everything we would need to know to run this restaurant,” Christo said, pausing to reflect. “He always told us he wouldn’t be around forever and we had to learn eventually – it just came a lot sooner than we thought.”
After the funeral, the brothers were left with a hard decision. Should they close the restaurant? Or keep it going with their mother? After taking a week off, they opted to give it a try and spent an entire Sunday at the restaurant getting things in order.
All those years of watching and learning from Niko came full circle. At the end of a long day, the brothers felt confident. “That’s when we knew we were ready to reopen,” Christo said.
Then came the real test.
“The most important thing is the customers say the food tastes the same,” Lola said, which is the biggest compliment Spiro and Christo could ever receive.
The months since Niko’s passing have been both painful and happy at the same time. Loyal customers continue to fill the dining room, offering condolences and sharing memories of Niko. “People loved him so much. They’ve been showing that to me for months, and they’re still doing it,” Lola said. “To be living in a town for a short time – only 14 years – and to have all these people be so good to me, so supportive, so helpful, so good to me and my kids … I could not live in a better place in America than Owensboro. It’s unbelievable.”
Niko’s Italian Cuisine is located at 2200 E Parrish Ave (54).
