Harry Zepatos Jr., third-generation owner of The Arcade restaurant, has died

Harry Zepatos Jr. was owner of The Arcade, an old-school, diner-style restaurant that for more than 100 years has been an anchor of the historic South Main District, attracting celebrities and movie productions as well as hungry customers from Memphis and around the world.

But if "restaurateur" was Zepatos' job description, those who knew him best used such words as "mentor" and "booster" and "ambassador" while praising his relationship to the Memphis dining community and to the city's revitalized Downtown and beyond.

"He used to say there's only so many ways you can grill a patty, so really it's about making that customer experience special, that's what brings people back," said Zepatos' daughter-in-law, Kelcie Zepatos.

The third-generation owner of The Arcade, Harry Spero Zepatos Jr. died Wednesday at the Apple Grove Senior Living and Adult Day Center at the age of 68. The cause was Alzheimer's disease — the same disease that killed his father, Harry Zepatos, 76, in 2006.

The Arcade was founded in 1919 by Harry Jr.'s grandfather, Speros Zepatos, an immigrant from the Greek island of Kefalonia.

In 1925, Zepatos tore down the restaurant's original wood-frame building and replaced it with the now-famous structure that occupies the southeast corner of South Main and G.E. Patterson, with the bright neon marquee-style sign that has proved irresistible to filmmakers, who have featured The Arcade in such movies as "Mystery Train," directed by Jim Jarmusch, and "The Firm," starring Tom Cruise. (The star power had an antecedent: According to Zepatos family lore, the young Elvis Presley was a frequent diner, with a yen for Zepatos-style meatloaf.)

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Rarely closed in the intervening decades (the 2020 shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic were an exception to that rule), The Arcade remained a fixture of the block, keeping faith with South Main even as other businesses fled the Downtown area due to suburban expansion and the fear stoked by the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

While his father ran The Arcade, Zepatos Jr. — who had helped out at the restaurant when he was a boy — entered the food-service business by purchasing a couple of Baskin-Robbins ice cream franchises. In 1995, Harry Sr. sold The Arcade to Jacques Travis, manager of The Butcher Shop, a now-closed Downtown restaurant; but in 2002, Harry Jr. and his wife, Karan, bought it back. They have run it ever since, with son Jeff Zepatos and his wife, Kelcie, becoming involved several years later and now managing its day-to-day operations.

"Harry was always the life of the party," Kelcie Zepatos said. "He was a father figure and mentor to so many people, not just the people who worked in the restaurant but a lot of people in the food industry all over the city.

"He knew everybody in the South Main area, he was a real booster of its revitalization and an ambassador for Memphis. While a lot of people were leaving, we stuck it out, so when things began to come back to life down here, The Arcade became a real gathering place for people."

Harry Zepatos Jr. was a graduate of Christian Brothers High School and the University of Tennessee-Martin, where he earned a degree in architecture. Before entering the restaurant business, he worked for Drexel Toland and Associates, a Memphis-based hospital consulting firm, and he helped design medical buildings in such far-flung locations as Hawaii.

According to Kelcie, her father-in-law described running a restaurant as like hosting a party at your home, but a party that happened every day. "You know you have to clean up, get ready, and prep, and then enjoy yourself when it comes."

In addition to his wife of 45 years, Karan Hooper Zepatos, and son, Jeff Zepatos, he leaves another son, Michael Zepatos; a sister, Valerie Zepatos Gosney; and a grandson, Harry Zepatos III.

Services are at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at Memorial Park Funeral Home, 5668 Poplar. Visitation is at 10 a.m. (The restaurant will be closed Saturday.)

The family requests any memorials be made to organizations working to raise awareness about and combat Alzheimer's disease. In particular, donations could be made via Jeff Zepatos' page on the Walk to End Alzheimer's site at act.alz.org.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Harry Zepatos Jr. dies: Arcade restaurant owner in Memphis