They are among the best-educated waiters in town. Nick Jordanoff, a 37-year-old American with Slovak and Bulgarian roots, earned a degree in math. His business partner, Jerome Jocunskas, 39, who is of Lithuanian and German origin, holds degrees in three majors: English writing, political science and philosophy.
Both are big guys and they wear Bulgarian peasant shirts. Their restaurant -- Old Europe on the South Side -- is full of souvenirs from Bulgaria.
I am a Polish guy who arrived in the United States in July for a press fellowship. Often the first sign of homesickness is missing the food of your homeland, but I'm not a great cook, so I couldn't make any for myself. So I went on the road to find something from my part of the world -- Central Europe -- or its close neighbor, Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, it wasn't a happy experience because my food is in short supply here. Then I found Old Europe.
Jocunskas likes to quote Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, "If you want to fly, first you have to walk and then to run."
They walked and ran in Primanti Brothers in Oakland, where both were managers. Two years ago in August came their time to fly.
Their South Side place may be the only full-service restaurant serving specialties from Eastern Europe. For Jordanoff, creating Old Europe was not just a business -- it was a mission.
It's a lonely one, too. In the entire town, I discovered only one small Hungarian restaurant, a pub with Polish cuisine in Bloomfield and McKees Rocks' Pierogies Plus, though it is take-out only, not a restaurant.
Sadly, Central and Eastern European cuisine has never been popular here. Why, I wondered, if at least 30 percent of Pittsburgh inhabitants' ancestors came from my part of the world?
Jordanoff points out that his grandparents' generation of newcomers was too poor to eat out. And if they could make their food at home, why seek it outside?
Old Europe's name was borrowed from a Russian restaurant, also on the South Side, which was owned by three university teachers who closed it in 1986. Jordanoff asked and they agreed to pass on the name.
Squirrel Hill residents might remember Moscow Nights, the last Russian restaurant in town. It vanished a few years ago from Murray Avenue. On the next street over from Old Europe was the last Serbian restaurant, Sarah's, which was run by the late Sarah Evosevich. The Bosnian owner of Sarajevo Family Restaurant closed that Avalon place.
I know something about the problems of running a family restaurant. Nine years ago, my mother regained the family restaurant after it had been forcefully taken over by a communist state company, which had operated it since the late '40s. It came back to my mother in a mess and needed furniture, paint, flooring and equipment. Now she finds herself trying to reinstate the good reputation it had before the war.
Today, an old woman who's a marvelous cook arrives there each morning to prepare the lunches and dinners, which my mother serves. Unfortunately, I never learned to cook, although in the mid-'90s I worked there as the barman. But I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to run a place where people expect good food.
Here in Pittsburgh, few tried to establish ethnic restaurants that might attract other nationalities. Slavic people and others from the so called "East," mostly workers, were not perceived as potential customers, and restaurateurs figured they'd never attract the Anglo-American mainstream.
Jordanoff wasn't scared off by this idea. As a young guy, he danced in a Bulgarian folk group and took part in cooking competitions organized by Central and East European communities. There he met Serbs, Croatians, Hungarians and his compatriots -- Bulgarians and Slovaks. He learned a lot.
When it comes to cuisine, the last word is his 100-year-old grandmother.
In Old Europe, you can order specialties from not only Turkey and the Balkan countries, but also from Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia. The menu is based on recipes brought by the immigrants' families.
In the future, there will be dishes from Lithuania. Jordanoff's partner, Jocunskas, began to search for his Lithuanian roots when he was in grade school.
During "ethnic day," the teacher showed youngsters where their ancestors came from, including Italy, Germany, England and Ireland. "Where is your family from?" Jocunskas was asked.
"Lithuania," he said. "I don't know where it is," the teacher said. That incited his curiosity.
Some day, he wants his son, Harry, who is 10, to take over the business.
"It's a tough job" says Jocunskas. "That's why children don't want to continue such a enterprise. And this is also one of the reasons why this home cuisine is so badly represented."
Jozsa Bondar, 59, a Hungarian-American who runs the small restaurant in Hazelwood called Jozsa Corner, remembers three other Hungarian restaurants when he opened his place on Second Avenue 13 years ago. He added one more reason so few restaurants feature food from Central and Eastern Europe: "We are very hospitable, but our people don't see business in cuisine."
Bondar came to the United States in 1956 after the failure of the anticommunist revolution in Hungary. He graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and ran his own small PR firm. At first glance, his Hungarian restaurant resembles a messy kitchen. In the back, there is a "Hungarian peasant room" for 30 people. He rents more elegant spaces -- the biggest for 150 diners. Three or four times a year the room is rented for weddings and other celebrations. Most of his business comes from catering.
"Hazelwood is a blighted area," says Bondar. "I don't make big bucks. But I like my restaurant."
People like it, too. It's worth a drive just for goulash (spicy pork meat) and pallacinki, or Hungarian crepes. Bondar has a book where customers write in their compliments.
Bloomfield is more lively than Hazelwood, but who could expect here, in Little Italy, a Polish restaurant? Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, which was established 16 years ago by Stan Frankowski, a butcher and Polish community activist, lures customers with his exterior paintings of Polish-American generals and Maria Sklodowska, a Polish Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
The Polish pub looks like a long room featuring standing sculptures of an Indian and a bear. Its walls are crowded with sport emblems and souvenirs, together with pictures of the Polish pope and the president of Poland visiting the 'Burgh.
A staff of nine works here, but only Frankowski's sons are Polish-Americans.
Both Steve, 38, and Karol, 36, are university graduates, but they like this business. (Steve also runs a small distribution company.)
Karol is as astonished as I am by the fact that his tavern may be the only Polish pub in town. "Really?" said Karol. "I really don't know why it is like that. Our family will be always running this pub."
Frankowski's tavern serves pierogies from Pierogies Plus, the biggest provider of fresh non-frozen pierogies in the city, according to proprietor Helena Mannarino, who came to the United States 27 years ago from Warsaw, where she ran a small bar with her aunt.
In Pittsburgh she worked as a waiter and manager in two Asian restaurants. Ten years ago, she started with her friend making pierogies two days a week. Today she employs 14 people who make thousand of pierogies weekly.
All her employees are women from Poland, Belarus and Ukraine.
"They know how to work," she says. "Americans take this job and quit. For the employer, such high turnover is too expensive. Why is there no true Polish restaurant in the city? Maybe Poles don't have a flair for this kind of business. I dream about establishing one day such a place. But I also know that it is great responsibility and risk."
Mannarino said Polish food may come to conquer Pittsburgh because everyone -- people of various nationalities, of every color --seems to like her pierogies. Even Italian restaurants buy her product, calling it "moon ravioli" because of the shape.
Maybe one day Pittsburgh will have more such places with Slavic and other Central and East European cuisine. There are potential customers -- new generations of Americanized ethnics in search of their family's food traditions. To succeed, these places will have to make the food properly, sticking to old recipes, and advertise it well. Then it's only hard work.
"And also pray," said Mannarino.
Rafal Geremek, who lives in Warsaw, Poland, is working at the Post-Gazette as part of an Alfred Friendly Fellowship.
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