Raton’s Pappas Family Celebrates a Century of “Going Forward”in the Restaurant Business
by Pat Veltri
RATON — One hundred years of anything is a major achievement. Despite seeming like it’s been around forever, any business that makes it to that illustrious benchmark has to start somewhere, and Pappas’ Sweet Shop Restaurant is no different.
The First Generation: Jim Pappas
Demitri Pappoedomanolakis, aka Jim Pappas, made his way to the small town of Raton, in the newly established state of New Mexico, in 1912, with little more than the clothes on his back, a tag on his coat bearing his name and destination, and a few coins in his pocket. He spoke very little English, hence the tag on his coat, so that one of the locals would show him the way to the coal camp of Van Houten.
At seventeen years of age, Jim had debarked in New York City from his native Greece in search of a new life in America, where the ambitious and adventurous could make their fortunes. He was born on the island of Crete, the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, on June 21, 1893. He stayed in New York City for a few months, then moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he secured a position as a laborer for the Ford Motor Company.
Before long Jim made his way to the Raton area, namely the coal camp of Van Houten. He had been encouraged to try his hand at working in the coal mining industry by a couple of American cousins who were coal miners in Van Houten. It was at Van Houten that his name was shortened to Pappas by mining officials who were clearly put to the test by the spelling of his over-long Greek name. His given name, Demitri, was anglicized to Jim.
While working the arduous job of coal mining, Jim Pappas dreamed of earning enough money to buy his own business. In 1918, after six years of digging coal, Jim received a draft notice from Uncle Sam’s Army, where he served for a short period of time until World War I was over. Returning to Van Houten, he was rehired to mine coal, but his second stab at the job lasted not quite the length of a shift.
The incident that steered Jim away from mining and propelled him into the business world was described in the May 16, 1964 issue of The Raton Daily Range: “Pappas said he had loaded a coal car and was pushing it out of the mine when it jumped the track. He unloaded the car, repaired the track, put the car back on the track, reloaded it and started to push it again. ‘I pushed it a little way and it jumped off the track again. I threw all my tools in the car, walked out of the mine and threw a big chunk of coal over my shoulder and headed to Raton,’ Pappas said.”
In Raton Jim Pappas was involved in various business pursuits. He bought a hotel with borrowed money, then sold it two months later, earning a fifty dollar profit. He then went on to operate the Bisbee Pool Hall for one and a half years.
In 1920 he became involved in a three way partnership with Mike Christos and Pete Damengos for the manufacturing of goat cheese. These were the years of Prohibition and a few rumors and speculations were bandied about pointing to moonshine as another product being manufactured along with the goat cheese.
Jim had made a deal with Antime Meloche, owner of the widely known TO Ranch, to lease some grazing land for his herd of goats. With money he had saved, he purchased 544 goats from a rancher in Mora and he and a helper drove them 150 miles across country in five days to the TO Ranch. The goat cheese (and moonshine) enterprise operated in southwest Raton on Gardiner Road. In six months time the business dissolved and the goats were sold for five dollars a head.
Jim Pappas and Mike Christos then managed a cafe on South First Street for a year before putting it up for sale. Jim moved on to Denver, Colorado, searching for another business to buy a stake in.
While in Denver a friend, Gus Petritis, sparked his interest in candy making. Although he had no experience as a confectioner, he decided to return to Raton to establish a candy business. He and Gus Petritis, who was well versed in the basics of candy making, collaborated and formed a partnership. The two partners opened the Korner Kandy Kitchen, staying in business for a mere thirty-six days before selling it to Eric Kintsel and Marcum Honeyfield. The venue wasn’t suited to their purposes. Their long range plans required a larger space that would accommodate a soda fountain plus table seating. While looking for another location, Jim worked as a waiter at the Deluxe Cafe.
In 1923, with borrowed money, Jim Pappas and Gus Petritis purchased the Sweet Shop from Tom Logan, and on November 19, 1923 they opened for business primarily as a candy shop and soft drink parlor, but they also sold a few sandwiches. The Sweet Shop was located in downtown Raton on Second Street, just north of Park Avenue, next to the movie theater. Initially Gus made the candy, but in 1926, he became ill and unable to work for a length of time. To keep the business operating normally a resourceful Jim taught himself the rudiments of making candy, a task he assumed responsibility for during Gus’s prolonged illness and the duration of the partnership.
Jim Pappas had been so involved in his diverse array of entrepreneurial pursuits that he didn’t take the time for a courting relationship. Ten years into the successful establishment of the Sweet Shop, when he was close to forty years of age, Jim returned to Greece to meet an eligible young woman that he had learned about through correspondence with one of his uncles. Within a short period of time he had met, courted, and married nineteen year old Katherine Tornazakis. The couple stayed in Greece until the birth of their first son, Mike. In October, 1934, Jim and his new family returned to Raton and the Sweet Shop. In time two more sons, John and Nick, were added to the family.
Jim Pappas and Gus Petritis operated the Sweet Shop as partners for thirty-two years. In 1955 Gus decided to retire and sold his interest in the business to Jim. From then on the Sweet Shop has been completely in the hands of the Pappas family.
Jim and Katherine Pappas continued the operation of the Sweet Shop until 1958, when they handed the reins over to their eldest son Mike. Both of them continued to work at the Sweet Shop, but without the added responsibility of being “in charge”.
A coal miner, a hotel owner, a partner in a goat cheese enterprise, a cafe operator, a waiter, a presumed moonshiner – Demitri Pappoedomanolakis finally found his niche in the confectionary business, setting in motion a family dynasty in candy making and restaurant work that has lasted for a “sweet” 100 years.
The Second Generation: Mike Pappas
Mike Pappas graduated from the University of Denver in 1956, worked in the Denver area for awhile as an accountant, and then moved back to Raton in 1958 for his initiation into the family enterprise. He added a restaurant to supplement the candy and ice cream business.
In a 2013 interview for The Raton Range, Mike said, “When I came home from college the candy and ice cream business was dying out, so I added a few sandwiches and we grew from there. It just kind of snowballed on us.”
Mike noted that he was fortunate to have a couple of experienced cooks to help him as he started the restaurant part of the business. “Jimmy Martinez was a really good little cook. He worked for awhile and he got me going, and then Wiley Padilla came along and really helped keep us going,” Mike remembered in The Range interview.
On August 27, 1962 Mike married Joy Walker, a ‘Southern belle” from Tennessee who in the course of time became his business partner as well as his life partner, and they had a daughter, Ann Marie.
Subsequent to the death of Mike’s father in 1971, he and his mother Katherine continued working together. Katherine baked every morning, becoming well-known for her specialities, homemade bread and cinnamon rolls.
In 1973, some fifty years after it was founded, the Sweet Shop moved to its present location, 1201 South Second Street. The move came about because Sunwest Bank bought out First National Bank and wanted to expand its premises. From the beginning the Sweet Shop building was sandwiched between the El Raton Movie Theater and the First National Bank. Mike Pappas made a deal with Sunwest Bank that was mutually beneficial to both parties, whereby the bank got his downtown building and he was able to finance a new building.
After the loss of Katherine, who passed away in 1987, Mike and his wife Joy continued making candy and operating the restaurant, but eventually the candy-making was dropped and they focused entirely on the restaurant. Joy tried her hand in the retail market, successfully operating a Hallmark franchise and Cory Jo’s Gift Shop for about twenty-five years.
When a fire broke out in the Sweet Shop kitchen in 2003, the restaurant was forced to close for six months in order to restore things to working order. Being closed for half a year wasn’t easy, but after the remodeling was completed the business rose like a phoenix from the ashes, bouncing back better than ever, with one of the largest, most modern restaurant kitchens in the area. Another significant change after the remodeling was the addition of a coffee shop in the space that previously housed Joy’s gift shop.
Mike Pappas was involved in the running of the “sweetest place in Raton” for over fifty years, all the while putting a great deal of hard work, passion and determination into building a top restaurant. “Anyone in the food business has to like it,” he said. “You have to like quality food, you have to like your customers and you have to like what you’re doing and enjoy what you’re doing to make it succeed. If you don’t, then you open and close.” He felt the biggest challenge of operating a restaurant is “maintaining a high standard, a high quality, and trying to keep it that way.”
To be continued
