It began with the dream of a young man growing up in Greece. The pursuit of that dream led him to a neighborhood in lower Manhattan.
A famous Wall Street institution, Harry's at Hanover Square, actually came naturally to the enterprising fellow. Harry Poulakakos had run a small business even as a teenager growing up in Sparta, Greece. "My father told me there would be a good opportunity for a better life in the United States," he said. In 1956, Harry Poulakakos took a chance. He came to the United States with the dream, and some might have said an impossible dream, of running and owning a business.
"Those first few years were very hard," said Poulakakos, as he surveyed his jammed and popular restaurant and bar on a recent weeknight. His business today is as much a part of the financial district as Delmonico's, which is a few blocks up from Harry's.
Still, before the success and fame, Poulakakos was a stranger in what must have seemed at times a strange land. Nevertheless, this was a land that he would soon learn to love.
"Two years after I came here I decided this is my country. I want to be a citizen because this is the greatest country in the world," Poulakakasos said. The 64-year-old entrepreneur lives in nearby Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with his wife and son. The son also runs his own restaurant upstairs.
Financial District
New York City's fabled financial district was a place where Harry Poulakakos would succeed beyond his wildest imagination. Today he and his son, Peter, are working on opening two more businesses this fall. Where did it all start?
Poulakakos, by the 1960s, was tending bar in the financial district and building up a following among the trading community. Eventually, he started managing a restaurant and bar. Many of his new-found friends encouraged him to go out on his own.
After years of hard work for Poulakakos and his wife, and years of saving, the American dream was finally realized in the fall of 1972. Harry's at Hanover Square was born. But the restaurant and bar could have easily been stillborn.
Harry's new business – like so many other small businesses in New York City, a municipality famous for huge rents as well as expensive business and individual taxes – faced a fight for survival in its first years.
The city and the nation were about to go through some hard times. Indeed, in the late 1970s, the city would skirt bankruptcy.
But danger was anon. The economy was about to head south fast. And the market would follow in 1973 and 1974. Just as Poulakakos' business was finishing its first year, the financial industry was going into a virtual depression. The stock market fell close to 50 percent in an 18-month period as stagflation, the Yom Kippur War and the first oil embargo devastated the American economy, especially the financial markets.
However, Poulakakos' relationships with traders and other financial professionals – built up through years of working at other bars – were about to save him.
"When I started, I knew a lot of Wall Street people and they gave me tremendous support. They made me a success. I had a lot of people who told me that, when I was ready to open, be sure to let us know," he said of those days.
Expense Account
"So many of my friends in the financial business would only come here. I had a friend at Lehman Brothers, which was next door, who told his firm that, if anything is put on the expense account, it should only be accepted if clients are taken to Harry's," according to Poulakakos.
All the big firms, including Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch, patronized Harry's in good times and bad. Over the years, Harry's has emphasized steaks and fish because he believes this is what financial professionals want.
"I never had a slow day from day one. I had tremendous support from them," he said. And that's true even since the Sept. 11 disaster. In the last year, a terrible time for the financial district, Harry's has come through in good shape.
"The summer was very good," Poulakakos said. "The first few months after September last year things were slow. And then, in the spring, things started to pick up again and by July and August everything was fine."
Market Cycles
Poulakakos has seen it all and has seen it happen many times over several market cycles.
Firms have come and gone, yet his business goes on. He offers another key for a business that caters to financial professionals: "An owner has to be there. He has to be ready to take care of his customers and find out exactly what they want."
Poulakakos is on the premises, ready to meet and cater to the needs of his patrons, both new and old.
Sometimes dreams do come true.
