NEW YORK – John Giannaris built the Hellenic Snack Bar way out on Long Island in East Marion, NY into a favorite eatery and landmark that lured people many miles to get there for the food and atmosphere.

He passed away May 12 at age 86, but his lifetime of work – he worked six to seven days a week – is being carried on by his son John, who began working with him at age 10 to learn the business, including chatting with customers.

“My father loved to work,” Giannaris told the Suffolk Times Review. “He’d be up early and working and go late into the night in the kitchen and then sit with other Greeks and talk until three in the morning. He never wanted to not be working.”

John Giannaris had to emigrate twice to the United States – because he was deported the first time in the early 1960s – to find a place in New York.

He returned with wife Anna Hartofilis, from Nisyros, started as a waiter at the Plaza Hotel, painted apartments, and worked in his brother-in-law’s donut shop, the Greek work ethic ingrained.