Columnist Jerry Fink: Karafantis hasn’t stopped working in the Kitchen

Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.

The Kitchen Cafe, lifeless for several months, has been resurrected.

The lounge in the Greek and Italian restaurant, which closed after owners Teddy and Stephanie Daginis divorced, was formerly a popular hangout for local musicians who jammed and sang on open-mike nights.

Michael Karafantis, a Vegas restaurateur since 1989, has breathed new life into the venue at 4850 W. Flamingo Road inside the Flamingo Business Centre mall.

"I partied here for 10 years," said the 53-year-old Karafantis, who, like former owner Daginis, is a native of Greece.

The menu is Greek and Mediterranean, with food prepared by Chef Michael Messologitis (who spent years with the old Cafe Michelle on East Flamingo Road and Cafe Nicolle on West Sahara Avenue).

There is Greek entertainment (including belly dancing) on Friday and Saturday nights and Yugoslavian music on Thursdays.

Eventually there will be jazz Mondays through Fridays. Karafantis says he is talking to a number of musicians about performing at the remodeled restaurant, which has a longer name than it once had: City Lights Bistro and Kitchen Cafe.

There are now two stages to accommodate the parade of music when it arrives.

Since opening a few weeks ago the venue has been relatively quiet, especially compared to the festive atmosphere that prevailed for so many years.

But Karafantis says he is taking things slowly, making sure everything is in order before he goes all out in his plan to recapture the essence of the former Kitchen Cafe -- a fun place where fans can hear good music.

"I hope everything is in place by mid-January," he said.

Karafantis once owned the Greek Island Cafe (now Habib's) at the Sahara Pavilion, in addition to several other restaurants, Waldaemer's Fine European Restaurant and Sunset Pizzeria, among them.

He has been associated with restaurants since he struck out on his own at age 14, leaving Greece and landing in New York City in 1969.

"I survived by peeling potatoes in a Greek restaurant in New York," Karafantis said. "I cleared $49 a week."

A series of chefs took him under their wings and taught him how to cook and to run a restaurant.

"I had like 10 fathers," Karafantis said. "Everyone took an interest in me. Everyone wanted to take care of me, I was so young."

He worked in restaurants in Manhattan and upstate New York for several years before moving to Iowa to work for the Steak-O-Rama, a chain of 47 restaurants owned by a Greek man.

"He raised his own cows, butchered them and sold the meat through his restaurants," Karafantis said.

Eventually, Karafantis moved with his family to San Diego and, ultimately, Las Vegas.

Along the way, he became a businessman.

"I learned by watching," he said. "It came easy for me. It was instinctive."

Karafantis was running a number of businesses when he reached a burnout point in 1998.

"I had 150 employees," he said. "My marriage was suffering. I had no time for my kids."

He sold his business interests.

"I traveled," Karafantis said. "I went to a lot of different places. I spent time with my family, my daughters."

The twin girls, Layne and Vaso, are students at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in physics.

Once his daughters were off to college, Karafantis began to get bored and looked for things to do.

When he returned from a business trip to San Antonio earlier this year, where he was working on a real estate investment, he learned that the Kitchen Cafe had closed.

Daginis had started a new Greek restaurant, Romy's (Teddy's Bistro) at 8565 W. Sahara Ave.

Recalling how popular the Kitchen had been, and how many hours he had spent there listening to some of the finest musicians in Las Vegas, Karafantis decided to get back into the restaurant business.

If everything works as planned, that could be music to the ears of many fans of the old Kitchen Cafe.

Lounging around

It's official, Amateur Celebrity Impersonator Karaoke is now a featured part of the entertainment mix at the Imperial Palace. The success of the first contest in November convinced IP officials to bring it back every month, on the third Thursday of the month, at Tequila Joe's, the Strip-front nightclub at the hotel.

The winner of each contest receives $500 and an audition for the Imperial Palace's "Legends In Concert" production.

For more information, call the IP public relations office at 794-3114.

Speaking of impressionists, check out Mark Verabian at the MGM Grand's Neyla Lounge 8 p.m. to midnight Mondays and Tuesdays.

The native of Los Angeles pays tribute to a large cast of entertainers, including Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Harry Connick Jr., Willie Nelson, Julio Iglesias and many others.

The Jazzed Cafe, 8615 W. Sahara Ave., continues to provide a venue for some of the area's top jazz musicians. From 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Mondays, the Groovediggers Jazz Duo with Jim Hall and LP Sims performs.