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{"id":308,"date":"2014-08-25T08:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/08\/apparently-we-need-more-greek-immigrants.html"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:25:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T04:25:31","slug":"apparently-we-need-more-greek-immigrants-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/08\/apparently-we-need-more-greek-immigrants-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Apparently, we need more Greek immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The missing ingredient: \u00a0Greeks.<\/p>\n

Look, I know I\u2019m extrapolating from two families, but Mr. & Mrs. Smiley, and the owners of the Riv (which we didn\u2019t frequent enough to feel a connection to) as well, worked very long hours. \u00a0The restaurant was closed on Sundays, but the rest of the time, they were at the counter and at the grill most of the time that we went in there. \u00a0The place was generally busy \u2014 they were closed down for a while due to a fire, but reopened, and regained their customers. \u00a0Our feeling was that when they closed, it wasn\u2019t due to lack of business, but because they were ready to retire, and the first incarnation after they closed down opened up soon enough afterwards that we figured that the new management were the children or someone else they had handed the business down to. <\/p>\n

But it takes more than just a good gyro to run a restaurant. \u00a0It takes a reasonable amount of business sense \u2014 and it takes a willingness to work long hours rather than just paying other people to work there. \u00a0Seeing the 5th incarnation of the Riv\u2019s former location not even make it to opening day makes me wonder if this is, in part, a matter of the postwar immigration of Greeks being too long ago, their children and grandchildren being too Americanized, and that Greek restaurant-running tradition fading. <\/p>\n

Heck, our latest attempt at gyros? \u00a0Nikko\u2019s Restaurant \u2014 which is now run by Koreans, who have created a new hybrid menu. \u00a0Unfortunately, the gyro sauce last time around seemed curdled. <\/p>\n

Would importing a new batch of Greeks solve the problem? \u00a0Probably not \u2014 I doubt they\u2019d be able to just fit seamlessly into the culture of their aging elders or their assimilated peers. \u00a0But, heck, if we\u2019re going to have open immigration, why not let in a few Southern\/Eastern Europeans, too?<\/p>\n

(and before you flip out that I appear to be endorsing immigration by white people only, I do think it\u2019s a cultural\/historical thing that Greek immigrants opened restaurants. \u00a0And it\u2019s idle Monday-morning speculation.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"