From 400 employees to 8, Village Squire and Rookies' group owner rides out pandemic

When Bob Karas talks about his life’s work, he isn’t just talking about himself.

He’s talking about siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.

And he’s talking about his late father, Paul Karas.

Members of the Karas family own 12 restaurants across the suburbs, including The Village Squire, Alexander’s, Rookies Sports Bar & Grill and Old Republic.

Paul Karas moved to the U.S. in 1963 with no money and no English skills, said Eleni Karas Karavasis, his daughter. He worked several jobs at a time, sometimes more than 120 hours a week, to make enough money to live and send home to his large family in Greece. He was able to open a restaurant by the late 1960s, and in 1974, he bought The Village Squire in West Dundee.

Paul Karas died in October.

That empire has grown over the decades to include more than 400 employees.

In no time flat, that number has been reduced to eight.

The future is uncertain, and the margins are slim.

“The restaurant industry is very fragile,” Bob Karas said. “People think, ‘Oh, they’ve got 12 locations, they’re rich, they’re millionaires,’ ” he said. “No. I work more now than I ever worked my whole life, and we’re not making the money we used to make with fewer restaurants and less work.”

They’re hoping for federal and state program help, but with so many restaurants, the process is difficult and slow. Being open as a carryout restaurant isn’t cutting it.

“We’ve got no money coming in,” he said. “This carryout is a joke. We probably should have just shut down, buttoned it up and waited it out.”

Two restaurants are doing OK, but others are temporarily shuttered, he said.

“We do love this business,” he said. “If we didn’t, we would have folded quite a while ago.”