Pappan thanks former employees with big bash

Lou Pappan is throwing a 75th birthday party for himself. And, as he used to say on TV, about 400 of his former restaurant employees, family members and friends are "gonna like it."

The former restaurateur best known for his colorful ads plugging Pappan's and Roy Rogers meals will play host at tonight's event at the Embassy Suites hotel in Moon.

"I'm doing it to thank the people who worked for me all these years and made me who I am today," said Pappan, a native of Greece who by the early 1990s was running 38 restaurants with about 1,300 employees from a company based in Bridgewater, Beaver County.

While he and his children now build shopping centers and houses, "I always wanted to do something" for the restaurant workers. "Every time I walk somewhere, I find a past employee of mine."

Tracking down former restaurant managers and other key workers, in fact, took six staff members, working over about three months. They started with addresses they had, "and when we would find one, he knew another one," Pappan said.

Pappan said the party marks not only his birthday, but 45 years of marriage to his wife, Panagiota, and more than 50 years in business.

Born Elias Demetrios Papanikolaou, he helped his family with a small yogurt business near Athens before traveling to America in 1951 to work at his uncle's 26th Street Grill in Beaver Falls. In 1962, he took over a candy store and converted it to a restaurant.

The chain of Pappan's and Roy Rogers locations grew over the next three decades, but in the mid-'90s, the family restaurants were sold off, and the Roy Rogers chain mostly disappeared, including the 17 stores Pappan owned. About 25 Roy Rogers remain open around Washington, D.C., he said.

Pappan's son, Demetrios, runs 11 local Wendy's restaurants. But the family's main business now is Fourway Properties, named for Demetrios, son Spiro, daughter Vasiliki -- and Pappan. That Bridgewater-based venture is involved in commercial and residential developments in the Pittsburgh region and in Phoenix.

"My first love was the restaurants, and the second was the real estate," Pappan said.

Each guest at tonight's party -- including Pittsburgh Democratic mayoral nominee Bob O'Connor, once the operations manager at Pappan's -- will get a silver dollar. Pappan visited his own restaurants often, and "I always gave every baby I met a silver dollar."

As for dinner, no "chicken, chicken, chicken," to borrow a line from his ads.

Surf and turf is on the menu. Greek and American bands and a pianist will entertain. And any presents will be promptly returned.

"I expect nothing but hugs," Pappan said.