Opa, break open the ouzo, and dance the sirtaki to the twang of a bouzouki!
He may not be a Greek god, but billionaire grocer and Brooklyn Technical High School alum John Catsimatidis was the toast of the town when the International Foundation for Greece immortalized the local on a commemorative stamp, celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit of the bus boy’s son who turned captain of industry.
It was a fitting birthday gift for the man who has everything and who turned 68 on Sept. 7.
Catsimatidis — the Gristedes and Red Apple Group owner whose Brooklyn real estate developments include a 95-unit building in Fort Greene and several parcels of land in Coney Island — hesitated at first to schlep 5,000 miles to the ancestral home he left behind as an infant to attend a lavish ceremony in Athens, until memories of his ancestors kicked in.
“I thought of my father and mother and grandparents, and how they would be so proud,” he said.
Catsimatidis, whose beaming mug graces the sepia tone emblem, cemented his stamp on his beloved Brooklyn in May when he bought the Boardwalk-adjacent former Federation Employment and Guidance Service building on Surf Avenue and W. 35th Street in Coney Island — 20 blocks from the booming Amusement District — for a cool $7.7 million, raising speculation about the construction of the blocks-long Ocean Dreams development he has planned nearby for years.
The self-made tycoon, whom the Hellenic Association of Brooklyn endorsed during his failed 2013 mayoral bid, also used his borough smarts to smooth over a conflict with a local councilwoman over his Fort Greene project.
“When we sat down and discussed solutions, we grew to be friends and realized that the development would improve housing and give jobs to locals, which was important to her,” he told Bisnow.com in July.
Catsimatidis began blazing business trails after dropping out of college to work in a grocery store — outraging his parents, who likely ate their words when their iconoclastic son amassed 10 stores by age 24.
“I worked hard and had a knack for doing things,” he told Resident.com when running for mayor.
