Written By Donna Engle
Not So Much a Restaurant as a Human Resource.
When Harry Sirinakis stands in the kitchen of Harry’s Main Street Grille in Westminster, he may be turning hot dogs in the same way his father and his grandfather did before him. Or he may be checking the quality of a panini or a grilled vegetable salad, because traditional and trendy share space in Harry’s kitchen today.
Harry’s has endured and prospered for 60 years, as other Main Street restaurants came and went. In Harry Sirinakis’ 19 years at the helm, he has expanded seating capacity by 40 percent, to 143, diversified the menu and entered the catering business.
Harry’s has patrons who have been coming in several times a week or several times a month for years, or in some cases, for decades. They table-hop to chat with friends, know the servers by name and are likely to keep the orders coming for the famous Coney Island-style hot dog, topped with the secret chili sauce, and a side of coleslaw. Recipes for the chili and coleslaw are so closely guarded that only Sirinakis knows them.
But the restaurateur and chef Dominick Trullo have diversified the menu with items such as tomato, basil and mozzarella salad, quesadillas and French onion soup. Sirinakis’ goals: to attract business people for working breakfasts or lunches, to boost dinner patronage and lure organizations to the meeting room that he added as part of a renovation and expansion in 1999.
From the start, Sirinakis has seized marketing opportunities. In 1996, when the Baltimore Ravens chose Westminster for training camp in July and August, football fan Sirinakis saw two advantages: his children would enjoy the excitement of pro football in their backyard, just as he did when the Baltimore Colts came into his parents’ restaurant, and Ravens fans would come, watch scrimmages and get hungry. Although Ravens players aren’t able to spend as much time downtown as the Colts did, the team’s fans have turned July and August from the slowest months to, “a real special and up time for us,” Sirinakis said.
A typical day at Harry’s begins with customers like Walter Parrish of Westminster, who comes in four or five days a week for a breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon and toast and what he describes as the best coffee around. Parrish became a Harry’s customer half a century ago. On break from his after-school job as an usher at the State Theater, he would walk two doors up Main Street to Harry’s Lunch-as it was then called-for a dinner of hot roast beef, French fries and Coke.
You can also usually find Robert and Ruth Chrest of Westminster, who rarely miss breakfast and occasionally come back for dinner. Mrs. Chrest formed the habit of eating breakfast at Harry’s 30 years ago, when she worked nearby. Now retired, she and her husband sample a variety from the breakfast menu.
Mrs. Chrest likes the fact that the food is, “prepared right here. They don’t bring in prepared food,” she said. She also praises the servers as friendly and efficient.
Lunch may bring in customers like Diane Jones, artistic director for the Children’s Chorus of Carroll County, who often schedules business lunches at Harry’s. “There are good networking opportunities here,” she said. Jones likes to skip around through the menu, ordering a variety of different dishes.
Jones’ business lunch companion on a recent afternoon was Margie Boudreaux, professor of music at McDaniel College. Boudreaux likes the convenience of Harry’s, within walking distance of the college. She came initially for the hot dogs, but began ordering a variety of items as the menu changed and expanded.
Evening diners often want Harry’s ribs. Sirinakis concocted a sauce and began offering ribs on Saturday nights in 1997. The ribs, “took over what we did on Saturday nights,” he said. Realizing he had a hit, Sirinakis began offering ribs every night and packaging “rib kits” for carryout.
The changes Sirinakis has incorporated are part of his plan to make sure there is a Harry’s in Westminster’s future. Survival of a family-owned restaurant for two generations is uncommon, survival for three generations with the owners actively involved is rare, and survival for four generations almost unheard of, he said.
“It’s about carrying on. It’s about proving the odds wrong, saying, fourth generation? Maybe,” he said. Sirinakis and his wife Becca have a daughter, 15, and a son, 12. One or both may someday want the business.
To beat the odds, Sirinakis has brought the approach of a business administration major–which he was, University of Dayton, 1983–to his family restaurant. “We’re a human resources company, and the product we sell is food. We never lose sight of that,” he said.
Reasoning that if a restaurant is built around its owner, it will die with him, Sirinakis has planned to ensure that Harry’s could continue without him. He sends staff members to leadership development seminars, uses management systems, and provides training manuals for employees.
“I cook every day, fill in. Part of the reason is to make sure the system is working. I’m monitoring quality, running carryout orders,” Sirinakis said.
Chef Trullo is a 1982 culinary arts graduate of Shawsheen Valley Technical School in Billerica, Massachusetts. He joined Harry’s staff as an assistant chef in 2002, left in 2004 and returned this year to fill an opening as head chef.
“There is good give and take here,” Trullo said. When he has an idea for a new menu item, he, Sirinakis and manager Sindy Kertiss sit down over a sample to discuss presentation, taste and ease of preparation. For the recently introduced grilled gourmet pizzas, for example, Trullo made 15 to 20 samples that were narrowed to the final seven or eight selections.
Although Sirinakis has varied the menu, he has not forgotten that the chili dog built Harry’s. When Harry and Bessie Amprazis came to Westminster from Greece and opened Harry’s Lunch in 1946, she had the capital to acquire the restaurant; he had the chili sauce recipe. When the couple sold the restaurant in 1959 to their daughter and son in-law, Zoe and George Sirinakis, Harry Amprazis shared the recipe with George Sirinakis. When Harry’s Lunch moved to 65 W. Main Street in 1976, a change necessitated by the realignment of John Street, the recipe went along. When Harry Sirinakis took over, his father gave it to him.
Hot dog consumption is down somewhat from earlier years, but whether smothered in chili and onions or plain with mustard, Harry’s patrons still gobble down 1,200 to 1,500 wieners a week. It’s a tradition.
