Andy Koutsoudakis, 'Warm, Cheerful' Tribeca Restaurateur, Is Virus Victim

Andy Koutsoudakis in his Tribeca's Kitchen, which he opened in 2014. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

The coronavirus has taken the life of a longtime Tribeca restaurateur, known to many for his warm, welcoming and cheerful spirit. Andy Koutsoudakis, 59, the owner of Tribeca’s Kitchen on Church Street, died on Friday in Richmond County Medical Center.

Before opening Tribeca’s Kitchen in 2014, Koutsoudakis was the owner with Peter Panayiotou of Gee Whiz, a Tribeca institution opened by the pair in 1989.

“My dad found the spot in Tribeca. Everybody told him he was crazy,” his son Andreas said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “What are you doing down there? There’s nothing over there. It is such an indicator of how he did things.”

“As the neighborhood was being built around them,” he added, “they were already there.”

Koutsoudakis’s death is personal to many of his regulars, who say the owner made them feel like family. “He treated me like I was his Uncle Dave. He used to buy me breakfast every weekend.,” said David Harris, 80, who has been a Tribeca’s Kitchen customer from the day it opened. Since his wife died seven years ago, it’s been his dining spot three and four times a week. “I felt like that was a place where I could just go and sit and read the paper and have coffee and a sandwich and talk to him. Nothing too heavy and personal. He was truly just an unusual person that way. It was like a comfort zone.”

“He was a dear friend to the entire neighborhood and his restaurants were like coming home,” said Bob Townley, executive director of Manhattan Youth and another regular. “Andy was family to me and to all of us.”

Tribeca’s Kitchen has been a favorite of city officials, including Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who tweeted: “Really heartbroken to hear about this terrible virus taking the life of Andy Koutsoudakis…He was a kind, warm, cheerful New Yorker. He was always at the front door welcoming customers.”

Koutsoudakis came to the U.S. from his native Crete at age 14. His parents brought him, then returned home, leaving their son under the supervision of an uncle. “From 14 years old, my dad was on his own and didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t have any money, didn’t have anything,” said his son Andreas. “He quickly jumped into the diner world, full of energy. The same guy you know.”

In 1982, Koutsoudakis returned to Greece to marry his wife Vanna, the girl next door he grew up with, and brought her back to New York. A few years later, he and Panayiotou managed a diner in Chelsea called Chelsea Gallery. Then came Gee Whiz.

“You’re talking about somebody with no opportunity ever,” Andreas said, “and here he is the owner of a New York City restaurant.”

“Andy epitomized the American Dream,” said Amy Sewell, who with her husband Charlie Sewell were dinner regulars every Monday evening at Tribeca’s Kitchen. “He was living it, always.”

Andreas, an attorney and his father’s advisor and close confidante, said there is “no way” he would close Tribeca’s Kitchen, and may be looking to another family member to run it. “I hope people don’t think Tribeca’s Kitchen is just my dad. And without him, it’s not him. Because it is him. Everything he built in there is part of him.”

Even as he lay in the hospital, Koutsoudakis’s generous spirit was present. “We brought the whole staff lunch and dinner every day,” Andreas said. “That’s what my dad would’ve wanted.”

Besides his wife and son, Koutsoudakis is survived by his daughter-in-law Alexia, two granddaughters, Vanna and Zoe, three sisters, four brothers-in-law, two sisters-in-laws and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

In lieu of flowers, the Koutsoudakis family asks that donations be made to a GoFundMe [1]they have established to support the purchase of protective gowns and masks for the staff at Richmond County Medical Center in Staten Island as well as other hospitals.

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