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•̂ ••••••IHB ÎHî l̂ ^ Cosy Grill's Louis Tsichlas hangs up his cook's apron Ham and eggs to go By Derek Baldwin ~ . / THE INTELLIGENCER Most passersby won't notice. But today will mark the turn- ing of a well-read page in the his- tory of downtown Belleville. Louis Tsichlas, owner and founder of the Cosy Grill, is offi- cially hanging up his cook's apron after a 51-year marathon behind the counter at his Front Street eatery. Known to generations of cus- tomers simply as "• ,ou," the hand- ing over of his beloved restaurant to new owners today brings an end to an era that began in 1950 when he purchased the Dianna Grill in the once-bust l ing core. It was a heady lime for a young man from the small i s l and village of Xios, Greece, who j u m p e d ship in Quebec in I ' M " ) at the end of the Second World \ \ a r in search of a new life fu l l of p r o s p e r i t y and adventure. At the age of J > , 1 s ichlas l e f t his posi t ion as a navigator in t i n - Greek M e r c h a n t \ a \ v \ \ h e n h e walked doun the g a n g p l a n k of his vessel, the l a x a t h e r s , and d i s ap - peared into t he dot kv ards ot 1 rois Rivieres, Que. His future looked bright, but there was a slight problem. Once in Montreal, although he found a job quite quickly at a small restaurant as a cook, he was quickly ferreted out by authorities for illegally working in Canada - he had not secured landed immi- grant status. "I didn't have a passport or anything. The immigration people caught me and threw me in jail," chuckled Lou, 78, at his restaurant Wednesday, puffing an ever-pres- ent cigarette to the sound of a siz- zling grill and a cash register ring- ing away. When he applied for citizenship papers from a Montreal jailhouse, Tsichlas was denied, then released and ordered deported within 29 days. Through a few contacts in the Montreal Greek community, how- ever, he learned that a friend of his had relatives in Belleville, a place where he could hide out to avoid being shipped back to a home country where opportunity simply wasn't as abundant as in Canada. Once In IJv/ilcville in 1948, he quickly- landed a job at the Esquire Grill at the lower end of Front Street and within two years, had saved enough money for a down payment to open his very own eatery in the form of the Dianna, located on the east side of Front Street just north of City Hall. He also bought his first home, married his wife Stamo in 1952 and three years later, with at least five years of Canadian resi- dency under his belt, he applied with the help of a lawyer at the Hastings County courthouse for landed status. His application was accepted. • Story continues on page 4.