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Page 18 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – Friday, July 19, 2019 ASKS | from page 1 We also talked about the famous family business – Kane’s Donuts – that his late dad began about six decades ago, Paul’s career as an accomplished chef, a book called “At The Greek Table,” some of his recipes, how he remembers the lunar landing of Apollo 50 years ago tomorrow (Saturday, July 20) and his thoughts on the dinosaur that has become a mascot for Kane’s new location. Delios, a 1979 Saugus High School graduate, was born in Lynn and grew up in Saugus and is a Wakefield resident. He has been married for 25 years to Jean (Johnson) Delios, who is assistant town manager in Reading. She was previously town planner in Saugus (1993-2003). Paul took courses at Salem State College, but didn’t complete his degree. Earlier in his life, he took a course through the American Quality Control Society that helped him get certified as a quality control engineer in the computer industry. According to the book that includes his recipes, he has spent his life in the restaurant and food service industry and has a talent for creating timeless Mediterranean recipes, developed from his family’s deep-rooted relationship with food. He earned his restaurant training at three restaurants his family owned in and around Boston, as well as having had his own catering company, Rosamarina’s, which began in 1990. Meze Estiatorio, the 230-seat restaurant he opened with investors in 2003, became Boston’s premiere Greek restaurant. In 2004 he began a professional relationship with Culinary Entertainment Group’s Simon Malls’ “Super Chefs Live!” tour. He later appeared with Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS’s “Ciao Italia,” Guy Fieri, Jacques Pepin and Martin Yan. In 2007 he took over the daily operations of his family donut shop on Lincoln Avenue in Saugus. Under his management, Kane’s has consistently been named one of the nation’s 10 top donut shops by MSNBC, Bon Appétit magazine and the Travel Channel’s Donut Paradise. In 2014, Kane’s expanded with a second donut shop at International Place in Boston’s financial district along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. In 2009 he teamed up with Fotios Stamos to publish his recipes at AtTheGreekTable.com, leading to the publishing of the cookbook that bears that name. While living in his hometown, Delios was active in Saugus local government, serving on the Conservation Commission and three terms as a Town Meeting member representing Precinct 3. Highlights of this interview follow. Q: Do you remember when astronaut Neil Armstrong touched off on the moon? A: I was at home on Hamilton Street in Saugus watching the TV in black and white with my mother and father and my siblings, and we were all in amazement. And listening to Walter Cronkite give his news broadcasts – he was an amazement as well. It was a big time for all of us. Q: What were you doing at the time? A: I was just a little child, but I remember mum signing me up for the Reader’s Digest for a little plastic bottle on a lunar module and the Apollo craft. And I remember mum getting that for me when I was a little kid and putting that together. Like any boy that age, my interest grew in science and the space program. And I think we were all kind of amazed and fell in love with it at that time. Q: Tell me how you got involved in Kane’s Donuts. A: My father was always in the food business when he came over from Greece. My dad had a place in Lynn called Mrs. Foster’s Donuts. And he sold out to his partner, who was my brother’s godfather; Dad sold out to him and he thought he was going to retire. Well, that was short-lived. One night he decided he was going to walk down the street and have a cup of coffee with Bob Kane, and lo and behold, Bob Kane had sold the business. And there were a couple of Dunkin’ Donut guys who had bought it. When he found out it was a couple of Dunkin’ guys, he struck a deal with them to buy the business – he and my mom. My father’s name was Peter Delios; my mother’s name was Kay Delios; and they struck a deal with those two guys. Q: Soon after the Dunkin’ This marks the spot of the new drive thru at Kane’s Donuts at Essex Landing. sale? A: Yes, right after the Dunkins bought Kane’s, my father had gone in there, and my father offered to buy it from the Dunkin’ guys. My folks found out they had bought an independent shop, and they didn’t want them to have it. Q: What year was that? A: It was in the late 80’s. Mum A copy of a book for sale at Kane’s Donuts that includes some of Paul Delios’s popular Greek recipes. and dad didn’t want to see the shop go into a Dunkin’, so they bought it. And I got out of electronics – my dad asked me, and I went in there [Kane’s] and started cleaning the place up with them. We took a lot of trash out of the basement. We cleaned up the whole place, and we reopened it with a fresh coat of paint, and we started building back the local following that it had, and we started getting recognized by a lot of people who were leaving the state for retirement and coming back and grabbing donuts. What dad did was bring in all of the old recipes he had from Mrs. Foster’s Donuts, and that’s what we have been using ever since: all the old Mrs. Foster’s Donuts’ recipes that dad had. The way he was doing things over there [Mrs. Foster’s] was the way we did it. Because Foster’s in its heyday was probably five times busier than Kane’s Donuts. Foster’s is no longer in business, because a lot of the independents aren’t out there anymore, because the big corporate machine has managed to place a donut shop just about on every corner. I believe right now there are about 18 of them within a radius of three miles of where we are [Kane’s Donuts on Route 1]. In 2007 they turned the donut shop over to their children, and they asked me if I would be president of the company because I had restaurant experience from the previous restaurants that I owned, and I revisited plans that I had back in 1988, which was to clean up the old – give it a little facelift – but it turned into a little bit more than a facelift, because at that point in time the store was so old that it needed a little more structural rehab. But we cleaned it up, and that was in 2010 when we did the rehab. In 2015, I had a group of investors come in that I was friendly with, and they offered to open a location at International Place in Boston. Q: Nothing wrong with that. A: No. Nothing wrong with that and the store has been Paul Delios relaxes during an interview this week inside the new Kane’s Donuts shop at Essex Landing on Route 1, where the business is celebrating for the month of July with 99¢ coffee in honor of the drive thru opening. (Saugus Advocate Photos by Mark E. Vogler) a very successful location for us. And in 2016 I was doing a fundraiser at Ernie Boch’s airline hangar, and I met Michael Barsamian, who is one of the principals here on the property [Essex Landing], and Mike basically made us an offer that we couldn’t refuse. It was “I will build you a location for your specifications. Just bring all of your equipment in.” With a couple of other modifications that I made to it, they assumed a lot of the costs into the project that they have here. Q: And so you wound up landing at the Landing. A: Yep. We landed at Essex Landing, and it’s been a great experience since we have been here. Q: And I guess you are going to play it by ear as far as whether there will be any future expansion? A: You know, we’re not ones to pull the trigger that quickly. You know, we opened that store in 2015 and we were 60 years at one location, and we wouldn’t have opened this one [at Essex Landing] so soon if it hadn’t been for that generous offer. So, we always stressed getting the location right before we tried to jump to the next one. There’s no need to grow fast. Q: Because there is a lot of curiosity about the dinosaur, let me ask you about that. To me, the previous location of the dinosaur is better than the current spot up on the tall wall. You have to drive by to see it, and it’s not that visible from Kane’s unless you are looking up at the wall as you drive to the exit. A: Well, the dinosaur was on the property that Kane’s Donuts now resides at, and it was actually at the rear end of Kane’s Donuts, which faces Route 1, but in order to do the construction, they had to take the dinosaur and move it to the next lot that’s right next to the property. They are developing multiple lots here, so they moved the dinosaur on top [of the wall], and it’s going to reside there for now. I don’t know where the landlord plans on placing the dinosaur. I couldn’t tell you where its permanent home is going to be. Q: But it’s not that visible unless you are driving down Route 1. A: Well, it might not have even been here, and that’s what people have got to realize, had it not been for the landlord asking the previous owner if he could buy the dinosaur; otherwise, it wasn’t going to be here. Q: But there was a little controversy about kids touching and taking pictures near it, and their not being safe. A: I don’t know why. We brought the dinosaur down for Easter so kids could see it, and the landlord wanted to bring the dinosaur down here so kids could enjoy it during the Easter holiday when they were off from school. It was nothing more than a kindness gesture on their part. The landlord wanted to bring it down so kids wouldn’t be climbing up the hill. Technically, it’s not a landmark. It’s not a landmark in this country unless the National Historical Register says it is; otherwise, it’s a big lawn statue. I know people’s emotions run high when it comes to that dinosaur. I thought it was pretty good of him to bring it down so kids could see it and touch it instead of worrying whether a child climbs up the top of the hill to get at it. Q: Do you have any recommendation on the dinosaur, the final location? A: It’s not mine, so whatever the landlord decides to do with it, that’s their decision. I really don’t have a say on it. They asked me if I could put it down here for the kids [near the donut shop], and I said, “Yeah, that would be great.” I don’t know what all of the fuss was; I really don’t know what all of the fuss was. It’s a two-ton lawn statue. It’s not like somebody was going to move it and knock it ASKS| SEE PAGE 19

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