A Peabody restaurant is ‘coming home’ after almost 20 years
George Kougianos always knew he wanted to be a part of the family business.
When he was 8, he would beg his mother to wake him up at 4 a.m. so he could help his father, Ted Kougianos, open his restaurant: Brothers Restaurant & Deli in Peabody.
“That day my mother came to pick me up at 8 or 9 a.m., and I remember feeling so accomplished, like I had already put in a full day’s work,” George told Boston.com.
George Kougianos as a child working with his father at Brothers Restaurant in Peabody.
George, now 33, continued to work at the restaurant, with his father and uncle, co-owner Kary Andrinopoulos, through high school until the restaurant closed in 1999 following a disagreement with the landlord over rent. The restaurant then opened a new location, New Brothers Deli in Danvers Square.
But for George, there was always a dream of a homecoming, a return to Peabody. And now he’s making it a reality.
Ted Kougianos, John Kerry, and Kary Andrinopoulos at the original Brothers.
After 17 years, the popular Peabody Square restaurant will return to the same 11 Main St. location it occupied from 1987 to 1999.
“It’s where I grew up,” he said. “The restaurant was my playground, a time I could visit my father at work because I didn’t get to see him anywhere else. Working with my father is something I’ve always wanted. “
George will be the principal owner of the location, with his father acting as his business parter. The restaurant is expected to reopen in late July or August.
George said customers can expect the restaurant, and its menu, to be exactly the same as they remember it.
George Kougianos.
“We’ll have the same menu everyone loves,” he said. “It’s a smaller version of the menu in Danvers because when we moved, we kept adding to it while we were there. But this will be just like when we were in Peabody, with all the items customers remember: our mousaka, grape leaves, famous turkey, roast beef, just home-cooking.”
Customers can also expect to see freshly baked pastries made daily by George’s mom, Gloria Kougianos.
The Kougianos family has signed a 20-year lease with the same landlord, George said, and New Brothers in Danvers will remain open.
But in order to make the homecoming a reality, the family also received help from the city: A $200,000 loan to help ease the transition.
George said he thinks of the loan as a testament to what the restaurant means to Peabody.
“When I was young, I didn’t understand what my parents had done here over the 14 years,” he said. “After they started this business, [Peabody] really started to become this flourishing community … Now we’ll be picking up where we left off.”
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