Captain's Galley set to reopen Tuesday in China Grove

Thursday, April 16, 2009 3:06 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend |

By Paris Goodnight

pgoodnight@salisburypost.com

CHINA GROVE — John Kazakos is reopening the Captain's Galley Seafood Restaurant his father founded — and he'd just as soon everyone forget about what caused the eatery to close last year and stay shut ever since.

After several customers became sick in June 2007, Captain's Galley was shut down by Rowan County Health Department officials, who determined that employees had slaughtered a goat in the restaurant's kitchen days before people started reporting symptoms. One woman eventually died from the E. coli outbreak.

The restaurant has remained vacant ever since.

Enter Kazakos, who plans to return the restaurant to its glory days from when his father, Andreas, opened the third Captain's Galley in a chain that now includes 21 others, mostly in North Carolina.

"We went at our own pace," John Kazakos said Wednesday. "It really could've not happened at all. But it did."

Lynn Aldridge, supervisor at the Rowan County Environmental Health Department, said the restaurant got its permit to reopen Wednesday. And he pointed out that food handling establishments everywhere get better by learning from the mistakes of the past.

Kazakos doesn't plan to dwell on the restaurant's former troubles — or the sour economy's effects on people starting new businesses or trying to entice customers to eat out.

"We understand the rough economy," he said. "We're doing something affordable and something for less than they could do going to a grocery store."

After the senior Kazakos opened his first restaurant in Stony Point 28 years ago, he picked a former A&P grocery store in China Grove for the third Captain's Galley in 1988.

His son said the growing number of locations over the years is evidence of the chain's recipe for success, preparing the freshest seafood and other items while maintaining prices that make a dining out experience affordable.

He points out the new menu will include an entire page of daily specials, ranging from items like shrimp for $4.49 and a popcorn shrimp/flounder combo for $6.95 up to a Captain's Galley seafood platter for $12.95.

He said about 30 employees will work at the restaurant, which seats 350 and has rooms that can be used for parties or other gatherings. Workers spent more than a month getting the restaurant ready, with new paint on the exterior and other updates inside.

He emphasized the restaurant will be family-owned and operated, with his father helping out if needed. Both are residents of Winston-Salem.

Kazakos said he has no doubts the community will support the restaurant again. "We're not scared to open our doors," he said. "We have the quality, hospitality and menu to back it up. We're very excited."

Captain's Galley will open Tuesday for the first time. It will be open weekly Tuesday-Saturday from 3-9 p.m. and Sundays 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

The phone number is 704-857-6224.