Leo and Stephanie Koutikas of Milford, Connecticut are still trying to cope with the passing of their son Stergios, just 25, when he died unexpectedly in March, and falling back on keeping their Greek Spot Cafe & Grill going for some solace.

“It kept us alive,” Stephanie told The New Haven Register of a take-out  business that provided income during the COVID-19 pandemic and occupied. “Thank goodness we had the cafe,” she said.

While they referred to Stergios as “our son,” he was from an earlier relationship of Leo Koutikas.

“We’re grateful he worked here – he was loved and we felt supported” by customers after his death, she said. “It’s a difficult year, we take it day to day.”

I just started to feel like myself,” Leo Koutikas recently said. He had to sell a diner in Bridgeport that his father opened in 1974 because of the pandemic.

“It’s bittersweet,” he said. “Less stress but taking down my father’s pictures was hard. He was there 45 years,” he said. When they opened their business together, “it was a dream come true,” Stephanie Koutikas said.