It's a Family Affair

When he opened in 1977, John Eurdolian basically fell into the restaurant business. And he took his entire family with him when he did.

“It was totally accidental,” John recalls. “I was getting my master’s degree in business at Boston University and I needed money, so a friend of mine suggested that I work in a restaurant. I just fell in love with the business. I knew very little about cooking or managing, but everybody helped – my mother started cooking, my dad, my sisters got in.”

From that point on, it has been a non-stop love affair between John, his parents and three sisters, and Karoun. From the day it opened on Newbury Street in Boston, to the move to Newtonville in late 1979, to today John has had a passion for his family’s restaurant.

But like any love affair, there have been some bumps in the road and John has had to adjust.

About a decade ago, John realized that if he kept being open six days a week and serving lunch and dinner every day, he was going to burn out. He needed to put his energies towards being there not just for dinner but also for the special occasions, the annual anniversaries and celebrations when people come in “year after year after year.”  So now, they are open solely for dinner five nights a week and are closed Sundays and Mondays.

Every night is lively at Karoun, but weekend nights are when the Mediterranean-Middle Eastern-Armenian restaurant really comes alive.

Belly dancing and international music are just a part of the draw on Fridays and Saturdays. John will get up onstage and not only emcee the entire evening’s entertainment, but he will always grace his customers with a song or two in one of the many languages he knows. He gets the feel for the ethnic makeup of the crowd and tries to sing something from their culture. When he’s unsure John is no less an ambassador of goodwill and showmanship.

“When I’m in doubt,” he chuckles, “I just sing in French.”

John and his sisters have the same attitude towards the food at Karoun: they want to give the customers what they want, what they know and have come to expect from the restaurant. So in these times of organic cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, the Eurdolians just keep doing what they’ve been doing all along.

“It’s always been a part of the Middle Eastern culture,” states John. “Your mom cooks whatever is available in the market, the bazaar, on that day - whatever the farmer brought. That’s what our taste is, that’s what we do here.”

This means that the lamb kebabs, the restaurant’s best selling menu item, will always be available. But in the summer, you can order it on top of a bed of lettuce for a lighter meal; in the winter, you can get the more traditional dish complemented by rice.

And John, and his sisters Nora and Mary who handle most of the cooking, were far ahead of the FDA in recognizing the healthiest way to eat.

“It’s always been a third vegetables, a third starch, a third meat,” John explains. “This is what we’ve always done.”

Adding to the family feel of the restaurant, sister Roushi – an attorney during the week – helps out at the front of the house on the busy weekends. Their father Nishan, who recently celebrated his 86^th birthday, cuts the meats and helps with the prep. Mother Isgouhie helps oversee the kitchen, and many of the recipes used at Karoun originated in her kitchen. John himself has been known to “take off my jacket, my tie and jump into the line when it gets busy.”

But being there for his customers and being the heart of the restaurant is John’s true love.

“When they come in, I want them to be 100% at home,” he exclaims. “And when they leave, just take with them something special, like they were someplace else. Not in Newton, not in America- somewhere foreign. It’s more than about the love of food, more than about the love of music – it’s love of people.”