ade corning downtown Mmm, mmm, good eatin': Cosy Grill a city tradition By Chris Malette ^̂ ° f • ^f The intelligencer, They're the over-easy, sunny-side-up pair who have made the unassuming down- town eatery, Cosy Grill, a Belleville institution* Mano and Leondios "Louis" Tsichlas are the father and son team who have made coming downtown to a plate of home- style cooking a tradition for 40 years and none of it could have been possible had Louis decided to follow the orders of Canadian customs and immi- gration officials back in the 1940s. Louis, 74, was born in the Suez, Egypt, when his father worked on the massive Suez Canal project. His mother became ill and the family went home to the island of Hios, Greece, where Louis was raised. During the Second World War, Louis served in the Greek merchant marine and, at the end of the war, jumped a Greek freighter when it was in port in Trois-Rivieres, Que, "I just dropped off the ship," he shrugs. "I had no passport, no papers. I just landed here/* He worked for a couple of years in Montreal until immi- gration officials caught up to him and soon ordered him "to get out of the country within 29 days." On the advice of a Montreal restaurant owner he knew in the Greek community there, Louis was told "to go to Belleville. The guy had a cousin here. I didn't know where Belleville was, but I came and went to work for Bill Fortis at the old Esquire Grill, where the (Modern Cafe) is now." Eventually Louis would .; fh'4'%