Steven’s Diner Restaurant—

A Brand New Deli From A Family With An Established Reputation

By Kaaren Valenta

After a year of renovations, Steven’s Diner Restaurant has opened at 43 South Main Street in the Village Shopping Center and Newtown Health District Director Donna McCarthy couldn’t be happier.

“I know from the deli that the family operated that everything will be clean, right down to the gaskets in the door. They clean everything every day,” she said. “[Besides] they are a very nice family.”

The Rountos family, which owns the shopping plaza, had operated Steven’s Deli there for the past six years. So when Mona Lisa restaurant moved from the plaza to its new location on South Main Street, Steve Rountos and his family renovated the space for a new diner restaurant.

The Rountos family is no stranger to the diner business. Steve’s father, Spiro, and Spiro’s oldest brother, Angelo, were co-founders of the Windmill Diners in New Milford and Danbury. Later they bought the shopping plaza in Newtown.

“When I bought this plaza with my brothers there was a restaurant already here, the Village Luncheonette, then it closed and Mona Lisa came in,” Spiro Angelo said.

There was also a deli. Six years ago Steve bought that business, then called Duffy’s, when the owner had to close for health reasons. Steve, now 28, had gone through the Naugatuck Valley Community College’s food service and hotel management program, and then took classes at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He also got a real estate license, deciding that it was “a good thing to have.”

Son and father cook in the kitchen while Steve’s mother, Maria, works out front. His sister, Joanna, 29, who is a registered dietician, also works part-time at the restaurant, and helped design the menu, especially the low-carbohydrate specials. The other Rountos siblings, Christopher, 25, and Fotini, 21, also can be often found at the diner.

The new restaurant is large with two dining rooms that seat 120 comfortably. When Mona Lisa closed, the Rountos family decided to also take over the adjacent retail space that most recently had housed a real estate office, to make a very spacious facility.

“We could have put in another five tables in here but we wanted to keep it very comfortable,” Maria Rountos said. “We wanted to make it like you are sitting in the kitchen in your own house.”

The diner has an extensive menu, but all of the food, including the desserts, is made on the premises. On the weekends, the kitchen also turns out fresh bread to serve with the dinners.

Steve Rountos’ grandparents emigrated from Greece so it is not a surprise to find such Greek specialties as moussaka, pastichio, spinach pie, and a gyro dinner ($8.75–$9.95) on the menu. There are a half-dozen vegetarian choices, too, along with an extensive selection of Italian favorites, steaks and chops, broiled and fried seafood, chicken, an extensive choice of hot and cold sandwiches, burgers, soup, salads, appetizers, and snacks. There is a complete breakfast menu, plus a children’s menu. The restaurant has a full bar and also serves international coffees.

“We make it all including the mashed potatoes — we don’t use the instant kind,” Spiro Rountos said. “We are trying to have a wide variety for the working class. Something that everyone can afford.”

Indeed, sandwiches start at $2.75 for grilled cheese or $2.85 for a BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato on white, wheat, or rye with a pickle). Fried egg sandwiches, served all day, start at $1.85. A plain char-broiled quarter pound hamburger is $2.85, or $4.85 when served with French fries, cole slaw and a pickle.

All entrees are served with potato, vegetable, rolls, and dinner salad or cup of soup. (A vegetable can be substituted for the potato for those on a low-carb diet.) A ten-ounce New York sirloin with french fried onion rings and sautéed mushrooms is $13.95; three broiled lamb chops with mint jelly, $11.75; grilled ham steak or half a broiled chicken, $8.95.

Spiro’s rice pudding ($1.95) and the house-made cheesecake ($2.85 plain, $3.25 with fruit topping) are offered along with a selection of pies and cheesecake, all made on the premises.

The diner opens at 6:30 am and serves until 10 pm seven days a week. But long hours are not new for Rountos family.

“Years ago — in the 60s, 70s, and 80s — all the diners were open 24 hours a day, but now most aren’t,” Spiro Rountos said. ‘I’m used to it. I’ve cooked all my life.”

As Donna McCarthy can attest, the family thoroughly cleans their entire facility twice a day.

“My motto is that cleanliness is next to godliness,” Steven Rountos said. “Cleanliness is everything. It is crucial. Your customers will come back and your equipment will last forever.”

All of the kitchen equipment and the coolers are new. The Rountos family gutted the restaurant space to the studs on both sides, and spent a year constructing the new diner while simultaneously keeping the smaller deli open.

“We did everything except the tile and sheetrock, which we had other people do because of the time involved,” Steve said. “We also fixed the outside and put in an entirely new greenhouse because the existing one was shot. The town [officials] already knew me so I didn’t have any problems.”

Besides being a dietician, working part-time at Danbury Hospital, Joanna Rountos also took a crash course in interior design which she put to good use in designing the interior of the diner.

The diner had a quiet opening on March 24.

“We wanted to get it up and running before we advertised it,” Steve Rountos said. “It now runs smoothly, like a well-greased machine.”

The customers agree.

“He’s wonderful!” Karen Blawie said. “[My husband] John likes to bring the children here for breakfast on the weekends and [Steve] calls them by name.”

For more information, or takeout, call 426-6328.