Business Profile: 7 Stars Diner, Brewster
DAVID PROPPER PHOTO
Dean Moundroukas doesn’t just own a diner. He’s involved in every facet of the business, from purchasing the food to cooking in the kitchen.
It’s a seven day-a-week job that usually last for more than 12 hours from opening to closing.
“What a lot of people consider an impossible amount of work and hours, for me, it’s what I know,” he said. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
And in Brewster at the 7 Stars Diner, he’s been doing it for 25 years come this September after it opened in 1990. The son of a father who owns multiple diners further south in Westchester and the Bronx, Moundroukas has the made the eatery along a busy Route 22 a staple in the community.
“It went very fast,” Moundroukas said of the 25 years in business.
To commemorate the quarter-century milestone, the 7 Stars Diner, a Brewster Chamber of Commerce member, is offering certain specials every Friday in the month of September with prices that match the ones in 1990s.
Moundroukas began training to run a diner long before he was old enough to even sell any of the alcoholic beverages his establishment offers. Growing up, his father Steve would wake him at 2 a.m. during school vacations to go down to the Hunts Point Market to select all the produce.
“I remember being 13-years-old like ‘Why am I doing this,’” he said. “But he was conditioning me and teaching me the business at a young age so I’ve been doing it my entire life.”
Even to this day, Moundroukas, a Brewster resident, doesn’t rely on others to do his purchasing; he still goes down to the city twice a week to select the freshest selection of fish, a trademark of his restaurant. He’s able to closely look at quality and price first hand.
Considering he, his wife Jill, and toddler daughter Mia all eat at Seven Star Diner three times a day, choosing the best food is a forgone conclusion.
Customers can be treated to a “great, home style cooked meal for a very reasonable price” where the lunch and dinner specials change each day. As customers’ pallets have become “much more sophisticated” the diner has had to continue to make sure it offers a wide variety of quality food.
And if ever a time Moundroukas doesn’t have everything up to snuff, his father who still comes by the diner occasionally, will be quick to critique and offer pointers.
But that happens rarely because Moundroukas is always on top of his diner. He’s only closed the diner two days in 25 years, which happened recently, and customers were shocked.
“‘What happen, what’s going on, is everything OK?’” Moundroukas recalled them saying.
As Moundroukas states, it’s a lifestyle woven into his DNA. Asked if there was ever a second career he could consider, Moundroukas said, “I do have a love for vintage sports cars, but making a living from it, I don’t know if I could ever do that because it’s something I enjoy as a hobby.”
Running a diner is a lifetime calling.
7 Star Diner is located at 1577 Route 22 in Brewster. Its phone number is 845-278-2750.
