Ross diner owner Valliant able to smile despite losses

It is 9 a.m. when the van pulls into the parking lot.

Peter Valliant emerges and is wheeled into the diner he founded 46 years ago. Those who know him rise to shake his hand. Those who don't watch curiously as he vanishes into a back room.

Out of view, Valliant settles in before a pile of potatoes. He holds the knife in his right hand. He lowers his head and begins, first peeling, then slicing.

“You've got to keep moving,” says Valliant, 88, through a thick Greek accent. “If you do nothing, you die.”

Such is the scene every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Valliant's Diner in Ross. Now owned and operated by his son Gerri, the diner is where Peter Valliant goes to stay connected with his children, to contribute to the business's success and — perhaps most importantly — to tell stories to anyone who will listen in a place where everyone will.

He speaks of home, the beautiful Greek island of Kefalonia, where old ladies gossiped under olive trees and the men either farmed or worked on boats.

He recalls the day his father drowned: A storm swept him off his boat, and for the next 35 years, his mother wore only black. He adds with pride that despite his father's death, he was not afraid, and he, too, became captain of a ship, delivering wine and cognac to other European countries and eventually traveling the world.

He extols the value of hard work, his swollen, arthritic knuckles proof of a life spent pulling anchors by hand and peeling mountains of potatoes. Once, he says, he was so tired that his eyes drifted to opposite sides of his head. But did he rest? Of course not. And the moment he returned to work, his eyes returned to normal.

“The more you work,” he says, “the more you live.”

He describes his first visit to Pittsburgh in 1952, how he met a beautiful North Side woman named Helen, then returned to Greece, unable to stop thinking of her. So he returned in 1954, he says, and married her.

She died young, in 1974, he says, and to that he adds nothing.

But then his smile returns and he lists his rules for running a successful business: “I never lie, never cheat, never steal. I help the people with everything they want.”

More than anything, he speaks of his love of family.

He never remarried, he jokes, because if he had, some woman would get half his belongings, when it should all go to his kids. He becomes serious and says he wanted even more kids, as many as 20, “but my wife was very skinny,” and the doctor told her to stop at two.

“You don't want money in the bank; you want kids,” he says. “Everything I have, I give to my kids. That's happiness!”

Valliant sits in the diner he founded and looks around. His daughter, Harriet, sits in a booth next to him, listening to stories. His son takes a break from the grill and places his hand on Dad's shoulder. A longtime customer spots him and shakes his hand. They speak intimately, sharing memories.

Then the van returns. Valliant wheels outside and returns to his home at Cumberland Crossing Manor in McCandless — where, he says, the women love to run their hands through his spiky, white hair.

He smiles and waves and is gone.