Allan Appel Photo
Sara Mulligan asked if she could buy the stool on which her boyfriend was sitting when she met him there two years ago at the Copper Kitchen. Buy? responded owner Bill Kalogeridis. Are you kidding? Take it.
In that spirit of generosity Chapel Street’s most beloved greasy spoon prepared and gave away all its food for free from morning till late afternoon Wednesday. When the last grilled cheese and BLT had been plated and slid down the counter, Kalogeridis shut down the grill for the last time after 26 years of operation.
Mulligan came in for one last egg salad sandwich. A Brazilian graduate student came in for two final grilled cheeses, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Countless others stopped by for coffee, malteds, omelets — most of all for one last tall drink of the breakfast and lunch nook’s homey, loving atmosphere.
“The customers and people kept me here, and I joke with them. This is like my wife, my kids, my home,” said Kalogerides, as tears flowed like the free coffee and malteds and customers and employees old and new kept dropping by to offer their hugs and encouragement.
Rose Miko said Kalogeridis was like her other father. “My dad used to come here in the 1960s [before Kalogeridis bought the place in 1984] and then he took me here,” she said.
“Bill gave me lollipops. I don’t know if he remembers, but I do” Miko said. She began coming to the Copper Kitchen as a customer. For the last three and a half years she’s been a waitress.
She and five or six others have lost their jobs.
The reason for the closing was a long-running dispute with the landlord,Yale University Properties. Kalogeridis wanted a five-year lease; they disagreed over dangers posed by grease traps and HVAC equipment Yale wanted him to replace. (Read more about that here.)
Kalogerides said that over the years he’s been able to maintain affordable prices by keeping a small staff and in effect doing the work of three people himself: helping the two other cooks cook, waiting tables when necessary, washing the dishes.
“I want everyone to be able to eat,” he said.
Another waitress came by to hoist a final ceremonial cup in tribute to Kalogeridis’ mentoring and generosity. Lisa [who preferred not to have her last name published] said that she was hired as the first waitress when Kalogeridis opened. “I was 30 then. Now I’m a 56-year-old grandma. And I wanted to be here on his last day.”
Kalogeridis estimated that during the week about 30 percent of the customers for his ample and affordable meals were Yale students. On Saturdays that number went up to half.
Among them were the graduate students from Greece, like biophysics and biochemistry student Dimitri Zattas. For himself and the other Greek-speaking kids who used to dine and hang with Bill, Zattas wanted equipment no more sophisticated that the simple and elegant coffee cups and saucers as keepsakes.
No problem. Kalogeridis insisted that he pack up a box of them with as many as it could contain. Zattas said he will distribute them to friends who enjoyed the Copper Kitchen over the years.
Kalogerides said that although the last meal has been served, he’ll be in to see if he could sell the remaining equipment until the end of the month.
Then he’ll take off some time to ponder what to do next.
At this stressed moment, he kept repeating, “I don’t need this place,” by which he meant the headaches of the long running dispute with his landlord.
Copper Kitchen is Kalogerides’ third restaurant, he said. He ran a bagel shop in Greenwich and before that co-owned a diner in Norwalk. And for 30 years before that he earned his chops at the Neptune Diner in White Plains.
A man who worked seven days a week from dawn to seven, he will not probably not be idle for long, he surmised.
“Thank you for all your business,” he told one of the the stream of regulars who hugged him good-bye Wednesday.
“Thank you,” the customer responded, “for all your love.”