As familiar to Chicagoans as Thompson's off-the-arm restaurants was a chain of 23 Raklios eating houses that dotted the Loop and nearby business districts in the early '30s. Almost as familiar was the legend of their bush-browed proprietor John Raklios. He had hit the Loop in 1901, fresh from Greece with $10 in his pocket, had parlayed a basket of fruit into a sidewalk fruit stand, then switched his bet to popular-priced restaurants. In 1928, his top year, his chain did a gross business of $3,600,000, and talkative John Raklios, with a...
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