28 DECEMBER 1-7, 2022 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | learned her way around the dish pit, re- members it much the same way. “It was run-of-the-mill people. When you think of a bar that’s literally Cheers, that’s what it was,” she says. “The same people every day after work.” For all these surprisingly wholesome moments, the Satire was still situated on Colfax in its heyday. Pete wouldn’t get home from work until 5 or 6 a.m. — which meant he often couldn’t wake up in time for church on Sundays, and sometimes things became decidedly more Road House than Cheers. There was the time Pete phoned Liz at 1 a.m. to tell her he was getting rid of the pool table, right that very minute. “People would get in fi ghts over pool,” she says. Or when he got home early one morning wearing a collar and a tie — but no shirt. Liz recalls Pete’s expla- nation: “There was an altercation at the bar, and the guy grabbed me from behind, and he pulled the shirt clean off of me.” Things never seemed out of control, though. “We grew up on Colfax,” Nikki notes. “It could never be scary.” “There would be some nights where I’d be working up in the offi ce and wouldn’t leave until two or three o’clock in the morn- ing, and nobody would ever bother me,” Liz adds. “People would tell me it’s not safe, and I’d say, ‘It’s fi ne.’” Then there were all those magical mo- ments that happen much more frequently in bars than in front of living room fi replaces. Author James Michener spent several nights a week in the Satire quietly researching his novel Centennial, even if “Pete didn’t know who he was,” Liz laughs. Or the time Clint Eastwood was fi lming scenes for Every Which Way but Loose in front of Sid King’s Crazy Horse, only to wander into the Satire with his orangutan co-star. “Dad sees the monkey and he starts screaming at [Clint Eastwood], ‘Take the monkey out of here!’” Dean remembers. “People were like, ‘Don’t you know who that is?’ And Dad says, ‘I don’t care who it is. Don’t bring a monkey into the bar.’” Enough magic can summon up success. Pete Contos came to helm nine businesses: Pete’s Satire Lounge, The Olympic Flame, Pete’s Kitchen, Pete’s Gyros Place, Pete’s University Park Cafe, Pete’s Central One, Pete’s Ice Cream & Coffee, Pete’s Greektown Cafe and The Bank Bar and Grill. While many carried Pete’s name, they remained family businesses to their core. Liz continued to manage the books, the business operations and what became a sprawling payroll, while the kids jumped in as they wanted to. Nikki worked as a hostess at the Olympic Flame during her high school summers. Dean, who learned to cook from his mom and grandmother, worked the line at Pete’s Kitchen. And Andrea, who always wanted to be a teacher, pursued her interests beyond restaurants. “They were not the traditional Greek parents that insisted you get into the family business and take it over and that’s all you get to do,” Nikki says. In unison, Liz, Nikki and Dean all repeat one of Pete’s mantras: Go do something else. “He told me that every day,” Dean recalls. “‘Go do something else. Be a lawyer. Be a doctor. Don’t come into this business; it’s not for you.’ But it was for me.” Andrea started a family with Andrew Barakos in Arizona. Nikki married Dean Phillips and moved away to Boston. Dean Contos bounced around a bit, but always found himself working alongside his parents. “We’d get in a fi ght and Pete would fi re me, and then I’d move away, and then I’d move back, and then we’d get in a fi ght again and then I’d fi re me, and then we’d get in a fi ght and then we’d both fi re me. But I’m still here,” he says. Eventually, Nikki returned to the fold, picking up shifts opposite her husband at Pete’s Gyros Place while learning how to manage the behind-the-scenes operations from her mom. As much as it became a family affair, questions would arise about whose family. “When Dad was here, this is what we had to do,” Dean says. “Not for him, but for everybody else. For the employees. For you, the customers. We felt like we had to do what was best for you.” While Pete, who into his eighties would stop in to work at each of his operations nearly every day, seemingly drank from an endless font of energy, no dream can last forever. “He was still dreaming through his illness, telling us he saw a really good restaurant up for sale,” Nikki says. Pete Contos passed away in May 2019 at age 85, though his extant businesses, family-run as they were, kept their lights aglow. But the family members had to weigh their own lives against the dreams they were married and born into. They shuttered Pete’s Gyros Place later that year, and Pete’s Greek Town never reopened after the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. That leaves four operations and count- less tough questions. Dean Phillips, Nikki’s husband, runs Pete’s University Park. Nikki handles Pete’s Central One alongside her brother, who runs the kitchen there. And Pete’s grandson, 24-year-old Alex Barakos, took over Pete’s Kitchen and Pete’s Satire Lounge. While you can still see the glimmers of sixty years of dreaming in their eyes, those dreams get grounded in a post-Pete real- ity. Dean Contos hasn’t taken a vacation in fourteen years, though “I went to Colorado Springs once,” he says. Nikki said she feels responsible for so many families beyond their own — not to mention the pressures from all the folks who feel betrayed when she and her siblings don’t always do things just as Pete would’ve done them. And Liz, who started all this right out of high school, wants to do what any octo- genarian does after a successful career: visit family, go to dinner with friends, maybe take in a movie here and there. The family remains committed to living the dream at all four locations, though they’re decidedly less hard-charging than Pete might have been. “We have family discussions about what businesses aren’t going anywhere, and the Satire is clearly one of those. The Kitchen is one of those,” Nikki notes. “As far as the rest go, it just depends. We have to think about what’s right for our family.” Of eight grandchildren, only Barakos has chosen the family business, and with a vision and resolve that, moment after mo- ment, remind everyone of Pete: If he has his way, the Satire’s neon will glow for at least another forty years. “We’re going to make it to one hundred,” he says to Liz with a laugh, though it’s very clear he isn’t joking. Sixty years of history might serve as a prologue. Barakos has lived in his grand- mother’s home since moving to Denver after college — just as Pete and Liz lived with her parents. And while Liz has been able to delegate the business of the family business, there’s nobody who’ll ever be able to manage the family part quite like her. “She does my laundry,” Barakos admits with a glint of embarrassment. “But it’s Yiayia,” he adds, using the Greek word for grandma. “Yiayia has to be busy; she has to have something to do.” “You just do things and make it work,” Liz says. “That’s all I can tell you. That’s the restaurant business. Restaurants don’t stand still.” And while it doesn’t necessarily stand still, one thing hasn’t changed, and perhaps never will. “It’s that sign. It’s that neon. People talk about that sign all the time,” Nikki says. Pete’s Satire Lounge, 1920 East Colfax Avenue, will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary with a party on December 3, complete with the unveil- ing of a new mural of Elizabeth and Pete Contos by Denver artist Patrick Kane McGregor. Cafe continued from page 27 Pete’s Kitchen, next door to the Satire, is another longtime staple from the Contos family. SKYLER MCKINLEY 4660 S Yosemite St, Greenwood Village dumplingfactoryco.com . (720) 420-9461 Open everyday 11am – 9pm Dine-in · Takeout · Delivery
