We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Cranias a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers?

My dad and family started our first restaurant in 1972. A Coney Island in Detroit, Michigan, called Christo’s Coney Island. It only had 35 seats, with a line out the door as soon as we opened. I was eight years old and can remember working hard to get the remodeled restaurant ready to open. My dad, the Old Man as we used to call him, took a wooden milk crate (that is what milk was delivered in back in those days). He tipped it over and put it next to the three-compartment sink in the dish room. He told me to stand on that crate and see if I could reach the hot water stacked with dirty dishes. I replied sure, dad, no problem. He then slapped me across my head and said welcome to the restaurant business, kid. We went on and opened four more restaurants in the Detroit area. This kept our family of 6 kids busy growing up; needless to say, my mom had her hands full.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I started working at my uncle Binno’s pizza place in the Irish Hills of Michigan, where most Detroiters spent their summers by the many lakes on the outskirts of Detroit. We are Greek, and you got loaned out to whoever had a restaurant and needed help. My uncle Binno made Detroit deep-dish pizza and taught me the ropes of the pizza business. Just down the street from Christo’s in Detroit, there was a coffee shop next to the Redford Theater. It was only 300 sq. ft. I was just 18 and waiting to get into the Culinary Arts program at Schoolcraft College. With the help of my family, we opened Vannetti’s Pizza Box in that location. There was just enough room for a counter that you could place your order and then go outside and wait until we called your name. We would go out the back door to the front of the street and bring you your order. So once again, there was a line going down the block to get a Vannetti’s pizza.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

We finally sold all our assets and moved to Central Florida, where we opened four more restaurants. Christos has operated ten restaurants since the early 1970s in Detroit, Michigan, and Central Florida. The problem with selling restaurants is that you usually get them back after the new owners fail. So we have to remodel and reopen and then resell. When this happens, you typically get a large down payment and have to take payments for the rest owed. I opened a new concept in 1994. It was a Southern Cuisine restaurant in downtown Sanford called Cafe Jake’s. It was very successful. You might recall it was in the movie MY GIRL. Don’t blink, or you would have missed me in the restaurant scene where I was the waiter. I was also the assistant to the prop director in that movie. Cafe Jake’s catered all the food in every scene, including the big wedding. After a couple of years, a buyer liked it so much that he made an offer I could not refuse. He paid the total amount.

I left the owner’s side of the business and went into sales with Royalty Foods for 16 years until we sold that company. Guess what? We got our original Christo’s restaurant Downtown back after 16 years. Present day after we took it back. We remodeled and reopened with my two brothers and partners, Terry and Ted. We have been family owned and operated at the Sanford location for over 39 years, with no retirement in the near future. Like my Old Man said, welcome to the restaurant business.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

A couple of years before COVID-19 devastated many businesses, especially the restaurant industry, my nephew, who is very much in tune with up-and-coming trends, suggested we try Uber Eats. My immediate reaction was that I would not be paying a 30% fee to deliver my food. He informed me that he could show me that it was a part of our annual marketing cost. The usual marketing at the time was print ads mailed out with coupons or Group On. When you added the price, it was approximately 22% with coupons. They are not too far off the mark, and they handle the marketing and delivery. So it was a no brainier. We added Uber, Grub Hub, Door Dash, and Slice online ordering. Covid-19 hit, and most of the area restaurants had to close except us. We moved directly into pick up and delivery, which we had already been doing. This allowed us to keep all our staff that wanted to work fully employed, and we never lost a beat. As a matter of fact, our take-out and the delivery percentage increased after Covid was over. It is approximately 30% of new business, and our dine-in has remained strong since we have become a destination restaurant for all of Central Florida.

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Image Credits
Daniella Hume, Masterpieces Photography