Roasty’s Diner changes hands but keeps Greeley’s Greek diner heritage alive

A generous plate: Southwestern style eggs loaded with hash browns and smothered with green chile, bacon and sausage at Roasty’s Diner. Photo by Emily Kemme.

By Emily Kemme

When Achilles Bardos took on ownership of Roasty’s Steak House this year, it wasn’t because he had loads of experience in the restaurant business.

The diner, a longtime feature of 8th Avenue, its name emblazoned in faded rust-colored lettering on a marquee projecting from its façade, is a downtown Greeley staple. 

Bardos recently retired from the University of Northern Colorado after 31 years as a professor of school psychology. His motivation for diving head first into the early morning world of pancakes and omelets, other than the fact that he and his family were longtime patrons of the Greek diner, was the wish to honor his longtime friend, Paul Lepeniotis — who ran the diner from the early 1970s until his retirement in 2008. Lepeniotis died in 2019.

Bardos and Lepeniotis share their Greek heritage: both men emigrated to the United States to pursue options that weren’t available to them in Greece at the time.

And although Lepeniotis had only been able to make it through junior high school in Lamis, Greece, population 7,000, the two men were aligned in their mutual respect for education.

Thanks to a business loan from Lepeniotis, Bardos owns an education testing company called EduMetrisis, which offers schools mechanisms to test children for learning, with an emphasis on providing them social and emotional support. 

A juicy burger and fries, Greek diner-style, at Roasty’s Diner in downtown Greeley. Photo courtesy of Roasty’s Diner.

In a Greeley Daily Tribune article dated March 8, 1977, staff writer Rosemary Koob asked the question, “What attracts people to Greeley?” and then proceeded to answer it with a story about Lepeniotis’ life as an immigrant.

He arrived in Denver in June 1955, thanks to the sponsorship of John Populous, a farmer from Craig, Colorado. Lamis, the town where Lepeniotis had grown up, was destroyed during World War II by bombing, the Axis occupation from 1941-1944 and guerrilla warfare during the Greek civil war fought between 1943-1949. 

Although he hadn’t been able to advance his education — high schools were seized by war authorities and repurposed into warehouses or hospitals — the article noted that Lepeniotis felt fortunate for the level of education he’d attained.

But “[t]he trials and tribulations of the inhumanities of war brought on a giant exodus from Greece,” Koob wrote.

It’s estimated that between 1945 and 1982, approximately 211,000 Greeks immigrated to the United States, with immigration peaking by 1970.

Lepeniotis spent 14 years working in high end Denver restaurants, starting at the Brown Palace as a busboy, becoming a waiter there and later at the Profile Room. 

But Denver is a big city compared to Lamis, and when an opportunity to buy a restaurant in Greeley arose, Lepeniotis and his wife, Barbara, made the move to small town living.

There’s an old saying that, “When two Greeks get together, they start a restaurant,” Koob’s story goes. She was referring to the Lepeniotises, but there’s broader truth to the statement.

A New York Times article in 1991 estimated that there were over 1,000 coffee shops and diners operated by Greek immigrants in the New York City area at the time. Most followed a tried-and-true formula: page after page of menu offerings and rotating dessert display cases designed to entice customers with visions of towering meringues, banana cream pies and cheesecakes buckling with strawberry glaze.

These mostly unpretentious diners are exalted for their all-day fare, with breakfast plates groaning under the weight of impeccably cooked eggs sunny-side up (or however a diner orders them), crisp bacon and mounds of hash browns. Long diner days segue into lunch and dinner, with an array of menu selections ranging from plump, satisfying burgers and fries and lamb gyros, to spaghetti and meatballs and broiled lobster tails.

As Greek immigrants spread across the country, it didn’t take long before similar diners dotted towns and cities, alike. In Greeley, there is Roasty’s, as well as The Country Inn and The Paragon Family Restaurant; the latter two are run by the Gatsiopoulos family.

The Lepeniotises bought the building, which formerly housed Longs Peak Cafe, from partners Harry Karris, George Brown and Alex Jamison, who had opened it in 1948. 

According to Greeley Architectural Inventory records provided by Elizabeth Kellums, Planner III - Historic Preservation at the City of Greeley, the building was constructed between 1906 and 1909, operating as the Greeley Motor Company from 1909-1918. Its restaurant beginnings were intermittent, opening in that capacity in 1920, and then again as Sam’s Coffee Shop from 1935-1944. In between those years, the building housed a clothing store and tailor. 

Longs Peak Cafe operated in the space from 1948 to 1970; when Lepeniotis purchased the business, he changed the name to Roasty’s Steak House.

You can glimpse a remnant of history — the name “Longs Peak Cafe” is etched into the glass above the front doors.

Bardos’ interest in running a restaurant stems primarily from his passion to pay back his friend: he’d considered calling the restaurant “Paul’s” to honor his legacy, but decided to keep the Roasty’s name since it was recognizable, and not only because of the big sign outside. He wanted to loop in the diner’s loyal following.

But the name, along with a hearty menu of diner-style offerings, is all that is currently recognizable.

Bardos and his family gave the space a complete facelift, including new paneling, paint, carpet and decor. They also scrubbed off years of accumulated grease. The reworked restaurant makes the space more open and fresh. 

Bardos and his family have given Roasty’s Diner a complete facelift, including new paneling, paint, carpet and decor. But the hearty menu of diner-style offerings remains. Photo Emily Kemme.

One of Bardos’ daughters took culinary courses and has been a custom cake decorator for 12 years; she runs Cakeorations, a home cottage business which will move into the north side of the diner, which formerly housed the bar and pool tables. The bakery will provide a venue to sit and enjoy coffee and sweets, including cakes, pastries, cupcakes and cookies. 

The concept remains true to its Greek past: Cakeorations will bring in Greek cookies and baklava. There are also echoes of those rotating glass cases showcasing all that is cream-filled and fluffed with meringue.

Bardos and his family knew that the dream of bringing a piece of Greece to the Greeley community was exciting for Lepeniotis, and they want to keep that tradition going. They say it’s fulfilling and a fun way to start each day by welcoming regulars they’ve known throughout the years, the years when they, too, were customers. 

“It feels like a family. You know you can have someone walk in, say good morning, you know what they want to eat and how they like it,” Bardos’ daughter said.

The family agrees that running a restaurant is a bit crazy, but for Paul and for what he did for them, they’d do anything.

To go to Roasty’s Diner

Where: 920 8th Ave. in Greeley

Hours: Open daily from 6 a.m - 2 p.m.

Contact: (970) 356-2806| roastyscafe2022@gmail.com | https://www.facebook.com/roastyscafe

Breakfast and lunch classics | South of the border favorites | Kid’s platters | Bloody Mary’s, beer