A “Foodie” Family Tradition

Pete Countouris was born into the food industry. His family’s food roots were planted in 1912 when his grandfather opened a Coney Island hot dog restaurant on the east side of Pittsburgh. His father proceeded to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, opening a “streetcar” diner in the city.

Pete and his brother worked in their father’s restaurant as teenagers and young adults until they decided to open a family-style restaurant of their own, “Drew’s Family Restaurant.”

In the meantime, Pete obtained a degree in business administration and management from Duquesne University, which furthered his knowledge of how to own and operate a business.

Combining his experience and love for food with his new knowledge of business, Pete decided to take the plunge and ventured out on his own, opening “Pete’s Island Grill,” which was a 230-seat restaurant, part of a sports complex along the Ohio River. He owned and operated the business before selling it and joining Masonic Village. Through all of Pete’s experiences and successes within the food industry, he’s learned several lessons. However, there’s one he shared that resonates with him the most:

“It doesn’t matter how good your marinara sauce is. What matters is your return on investment.”

Today, Pete uses his several decades of experience and several generations of influence to shine in his role as the director of food services at Masonic Village at Sewickley.

His days are very different from the time he spent working in and owning family restaurants, but he “loves it.”

“With restaurants, there’s lots of dollars and cents involved and lots of time commitment,” Pete said. “I worked seven days a week. Masonic Village has basically changed my lifestyle.”

Pete added that transitioning to Masonic Village wasn’t “too hard” because he “already had a reputation.”

“A lot of people who live here were actually my customers,” Pete said.

During his 17 years at Masonic Village, he’s had a significant impact on the food services department.

This impact includes spearheading several food services renovations, such as updating the dining room, installing a stone oven in the main dining room to make items like wood-fired pizzas and adding a pub.

“They’ve had enough faith in me to believe in the changes that I’ve made here, so that’s refreshing,” Pete said.

He finds that being able to implement these positive changes for the residents is one of the more rewarding aspects of his position. He enjoys being able to work with the residents, in general, because he “has a great relationship with them.”

In his personal life, Pete has also had an opportunity to spend a great deal of time with the residents, as he has been a Mason for 18 years.

“I jump on the [Masonic Village] bus with residents sometimes … since we have so much to talk about,” Pete said. “It’s nice having a lot in common with them and to go to lodge with the guys who are here.”

Pete has plenty of experience in the food industry, but he can’t say the same about being in the kitchen in his home. He said he doesn’t usually cook because he’s married to “an Iron Chef” who has been cooking since fifth grade.

“Cooking is her favorite thing to do. I pretty much just cook a couple of steaks in the backyard sometimes,” Pete said.

Although Pete isn’t typically the one cooking, he does use his skills occasionally to cook at his church for their food festival. His position at Masonic Village allows him more time to get involved in his community than he had as a restaurant owner.

“My last place was open at 11 a.m. and closed at 2 a.m. You have to spend a lot of time in the industry if you want to be successful,” Pete said, “Now I actually volunteer and go to church with my family. But at first, I was like the fifth wheel.” Pete also likes to spend his time gardening, golfing and traveling to Greece, where he has dual citizenship.

Since he enjoys Masonic Village so much, Pete said he has no plans to leave any time soon.

“I’m closing in on retirement … but as long as my key opens my door, and they still want me around, I’ll keep working,” Pete said.

By Katy Shero, public relations associate/intern