Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 4, 1994 TAG: 9404020091
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Michael Stowe STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Rarely a day went by in the next three decades that Pierce didn't visit the downtown Roanoke eatery. He was almost as much a fixture there as the antique Perfect Balance scales just inside the doorway and the 3-foot stainless-steel coffee urns churning behind the counter.
"It was the first place I went after getting out of the service," he recalled. "I came off a Continental Trailways bus downtown and went straight to the Junior Lunch. They gave me my first beer free."
Gripping a Milwaukee's Best in his right hand and sucking on a cigarette, Pierce sat in his familiar spot at the restaurant's counter for the final time last week. After 46 years of business, the landmark restaurant was forced to shut down after its longtime owner, John Apostolou, died of cancer in early March.
Pierce, 47, simply sighed at the thought of life without Junior Lunch. He will miss the country fried chicken, meatloaf and pork chops that cook Pauline Robinson has been serving up for four decades.
"Coming here is just like coming home," Pierce said. "It's going to be a loss."
Those sentiments were shared by others in the small group of regulars who gathered at Junior Lunch for the final time last week.
Most said they weren't just losing a place to grab a bite to eat or have a beer, but a second family and a sense of belonging.
\ The customer mix at Junior Lunch could best be described as diverse.
Lawyers and judges ate in booths just across the room from homeless or unemployed folks just nursing a glass of water so that they could have someplace warm to sit and people to talk to.
"We never had upper-class clientele," said John Apostolou's only son, Greg. "Dad never turned away a hungry person. If someone came in and said they were hungry then he always gave them something to eat."
Iris Karahalios, John Apostolou's daughter, said that was the reason the family decided to donate the food remaining in the restaurant's freezer to the Rescue Mission of Roanoke.
Buck Jenkins had been coming to Junior Lunch so long that he remembered the days when Greg, now 38, needed to stand on a stool so he work the restaurant's cash register.
"I'm crying inside right now," Jenkins said of the restaurant's closing. "My heart is here, right here in Junior Lunch."
Jenkins and some of the other Junior Lunch regulars said they didn't know where they will spend their days now.
"We just hope and pray someone will open this place back up," he said.
John Apostolou acted as a father figure to him, Jenkins said, telling him when he drank too much.
"Oh, he got on my butt a couple of times, but he always called me `son' when he did it," he said. "I love his whole family. I love everyone here. And Miss Pauline, she's the best cook in the city."
Robinson has been cooking homestyle meals at Junior Lunch for 40 years. She's worked for three different owners.
"Lord, I've cooked so much meatloaf that I can see it all the time," said Jenkins, 67.
Robinson doesn't know exactly what she'll do now the restaurant has closed.
"But I got to do something, just got to keep moving," she said.
There weren't many meals served on Junior Lunch's last day as Apostolou's family members packed boxes full of glasses, plates, cups and most of all, memories of him.
"This is a lifetime here," Karahalios said.
"He loved this place so much," sobbed Apostolou's widow, Katina. "He never wanted to leave."
He rarely did, for years even staying open on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. Until about three years ago, the restaurant was open seven days a week.
Despite his fight against cancer, Apostolou showed up at the restaurant every day until the week before he died.
Greg Apostolou said his dad had three priorities in his life: his family, his church and his restaurant.
"Those were the only things important to him," he said.
A native of Lemerion, Greece, John Apostolou immigrated to the United States in May, 1951.
When he bought Junior Lunch in 1961, the restaurant was located at the corner of Second and Luck, later home to a Goodyear Tires store and now just a parking lot.
In 1973, Apostolou moved the restaurant to the corner of Franklin Road and Second Street, where it remained until closing.
Greg Apostolou said that first-time customers would often refer to his dad as Junior, figuring he was the restaurant's namesake.
That's not the case. The diner was so named because of its proximity to the old Lee Junior High School, which stood on the site of the Poff federal building.
In the old days, Junior Lunch was one of only about half a dozen restaurants in downtown Roanoke, and it was open from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. "We used to have folks lined up in the morning for biscuits and gravy," recalled Greg Apostolou. "We were way ahead of the fast-food chains."
But though John Apostolou's love for his customers never deteriorated over the years, the building that housed his restaurant gradually did.
At the end, there were brown splotches on the ceiling caused by a leaky roof, and the cushions on the restaurant's booth were worn and tattered.
"He didn't want to give it up, but he also didn't want to put a lot back into at the end," Greg Apostolou said.
Junior Lunch struggled to break even in its last two years, Greg Apostolou said. The restaurant held tight to its regular customers but attracted few new ones.
"There just too many restaurants around now, too much competition," Apostolou said.
But there aren't many around that still offer pig brains and eggs like Junior Lunch did up to the end. Customers will also miss Katina Apostolou's special Greek salads.
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers occasionally would stop in for a bite to eat at Junior Lunch.
"John always looked after his customers, and he always had good food. That's a pretty good combination," the mayor said.
On the rare day that Apostolou wasn't in the restaurant, the care of the customers rested on the shoulders of Terry Neal, the restaurant's manager of 16 years.
As he wiped the lunch counter down for one of the last times, it was too difficult for Neal to talk about his former boss.
"Too busy," he said, tears in his eyes.
by CNB