The only problem restaurant owner Andreas Arsoniadis has with numbers is carrying the stacks of recordkeeping books he’s amassed over 40 years in the business.
At his Greek restaurant on 16th Street in the Central Lonsdale neighbourhood of North Vancouver, Andreas starts to tell his success story not with a nostalgic anecdote, but with countless rows of accounting.
Like a bloodhound on the scent, he hunts through volumes of blue notebooks for his earliest records. Finally he comes across a book with a simple “1” marked on its cover.
Inside, its first page dates November 1984. Comparing to another, less tidy book, a smile of satisfaction forms on his weathered face.
Under a column titled “NET,” he traces the number in the top row ($372.00) to the other book. The numbers match.
He does this for each row until the dates on the messier page stop on Tuesday, Nov. 6 – the day Little Billy’s went out of business, and business for Andreas Restaurant began.
As this year’s calendar inches closer to the same date, he will be celebrating four decades of Andreas Restaurant alongside friends, family and customers.
At an open house event on Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., festivities will be held over lunch, and plans for a renovation of the legacy dining establishment will be unveiled.
Still poring over his records, Andreas starts to read out the monthly revenues.
“$23,000 a month, that’s the way I bought the place,” he says.
“$36,000 the second month,” Andreas continues, now reading out what he made after taking control of the business.
“$31,000, $35,000,” he flips the page. “$43,000, $44,000, $46,000.”
“I think he gets it,” interjects his daughter, Kaity Arsoniadis, who has partnered with her father to run the restaurant in recent years.
Despite her concern that the news reporter may grow weary of his numerical chanting, Andreas is undeterred.
“Never mind,” he says, a mantra Andreas often repeats to shake off complaints when he’s determined to see something through.
“$48,000, $55,000, $53,000,” he says, a slight crescendo in his voice with each rising amount.
“Now I’m really going to interject,” Kaity says, instructing her 90-year-old father to sit down for the interview.
(Later, when Kaity is absent from the table, Andreas will return to reading revenues, which eventually settle into six-figure sums.)
Andreas's secret to success? Quality
That Andreas has stayed in the black while so many other restaurants have sunk into the red means he’s done something differently.
What’s his secret?
“I didn’t increase the price, because the people wouldn’t come,” he says. “I increased the quality and the amount of the food, and they start coming.”
Before opening his restaurant, Andreas had no previous experience in the industry. But with master’s degrees in economics and mathematics, he understood that repeat business was key to success.
He also knew protein, overseeing quality control at a North Vancouver meat plant that supplied nearly 200 Super Valu stores across the province. Today, the only beef he brings into his restaurant is fresh Canadian AAA.
When the meat plant closed in 1983, the opportunity came up to buy Little Billy’s.
Andreas felt he could bring his financial expertise and high standards to the restaurant business, Kaity explains.
“He saw things that were poor quality, and he said, ‘How do they sell this?’ So he thought, ‘You know what, if I ever opened a restaurant, I would do X, Y and Z,’” she said.
His formula was correct. Over time, business kept getting better and better.
Eventually it got good enough to buy another location in Langley. That got so good his customers ran out of places to park. Andreas saw a solution: Buy the Chinese restaurant next door and replace it with pavement.
Andreas more prepared than most to weather pandemic challenges
As it was across the industry, COVID-19 was a roadblock for Andreas. “Everything doubled up on price,” Kaity said.
But it wasn’t as big a shock for them. They already offered catering services with their entire menu, and had a strong pizza delivery business.
“A lot of the restaurants had to catch up,” she said. “He didn’t need to do any of that.”
Another thing Andreas didn’t have to worry about was rent.
“Dad owns the building, so we’re not paying $20,000 a month,” Kaity said.
But they did have to update their prices, which took some negotiation.
“We actually had fights…. I had to show him why he needed to increase his prices. ‘You’re not gouging, you know. Look at the market,’” she told him.
After Andreas had a stroke three years ago, Kaity became more involved in the business, fitting in shifts at the restaurant between her obligations as a policy advisor in the shipping sector.
She’s helped digitize the record keeping, and added an electronic point-of-sale system, which is essential with the advent of services like DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Kaity also handles the staffing, hiring and ordering. “As much as I can in the background, just to keep him [here].”
Hospitality always at core of business
The success of Andreas Restaurant is more than just cash transactions, as decades-long customers will tell you.
James Wilson and Johann Stangl come to the restaurant every Monday, “like church,” Stangl jokes.
“The food is great. The atmosphere is super,” Wilson says. “And the lady that looks after us here … is fantastic.”
His favourite dish is the lamb souvlaki and Caesar salad. “It’s gotten better every time I come,” he says.
Walking over to the table, Andreas greets the two customers with the exclamation: “My babies!” The three embrace, laughing like old friends.
Hospitality has always been central to the business, Kaity said.
For many years, warmth was given to the front of house by Matina, Andreas’s late wife. Though she died eight years ago, a picture of her looks over a table in the heart of the restaurant, permanently held with a “reserved” sign resting on the blue-and-grey tablecloth.
Customer is always right, even when they're wrong, owner says
While a legacy of detailed recordkeeping, quality food and friendly staff remains, Andreas is surprisingly open to change. And a big one is coming.
At Sunday’s open house, Kaity is sharing plans for a major renovation next year.
With an updated interior design, the bar is being moved to the front of the space, “and bring that life to the front for the neighborhood here,” she said.
Apart from adding vibrancy to the front, the new layout should generate more alcohol sales.
“Our restaurant is successful because of the food. The food he serves is phenomenal. But we don’t sell [much] alcohol,” she said.
If he increases drink sales, “his profit margins are going to be better. That’ll subsidize the food,” Kaity said.
What won’t change is Andreas’s approach to customer service.
“For the public, you have to be kind, nice and polite, even if they’re wrong … that’s the best policy. That’s the Number 1 policy,” he said.
“That’s why I increase the quality: Half a barbecue chicken, [from] two-and-a-half pounds to three-and-a-half pounds. An eight-ounce New York steak, you have to cut it nine-and-a-half – after the trimming, you have eight,” said Andreas, speaking in arithmetic again.
“I learned a lot at the meat plant. When the customer is satisfied with whatever he has, and then he goes any other place, the memory will come to him,” he said.
“Another ounce, another dollar we pay – double the money is coming up.”
