OceAnna Restaurant and Grill
Owner: George Karousos
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Type of Business: Restaurant serving American cuisine focusing on seafood
Location: 95 Williams St., New Bedford
Year Founded: 2001
Employees: 20 to 25 full- and part-timers
Annual Revenues: More than $1 million
Many restaurant owners create a product and take it to the marketplace.
George Karousos, owner of OceAnna Restaurant and Grill, looked inward to his market first and then created a product.
“You have to understand the people you are here to serve,” he said. “You have to find out what they love.”
It was this philosophy that helped him shape not only his menu, but a responsibility to preserve a history that permeates in downtown New Bedford, where the restaurant calls home.
Karousos opened OceAnna in what is known as Liberty Hall three years ago, a city landmark prized by residents.
The historic structure, which was also the Merchants Bank building, served as a stop on the underground railroad used by escaped slaves and a venue for speeches from President Abraham Lincoln to celebrated black author and orator Frederick Douglass.
Karousos took the building, which lay vacant for eight years after its occupant Bay Bank was acquired by Bank of Boston, and spent nearly $1 million rehabilitating it.
This includes preserving the bronze chandeliers attached to the 70-foot-high ceilings to a 37-ton bank vault in the cellar to ornamental Greek friezes encircling the dining room. Downstairs in what is called the vault lounge are bank ledgers dating back to the early 1900s resting on ornate mahogany desks, giving the restaurant a museum-like ambiance.
“The building is part of the heritage of the area,” he said. “We wanted to support and preserve it the best we can. It was important to the people here.”
Karousos, who came to the United States from Greece in 1963, has created a family-run restaurant network in southeastern New England.
He also owns The Sea Fare Inn in Portsmouth and Sea Fare’s American Café in Newport as well as The Abbey Grill and Great Hall and Giorgio’s The Steak House, both in Fall River. And in order to teach future chefs to be proper proprietors of restaurants, he founded the International Institute of Culinary Arts in Fall River.
OceAnna is his first New Bedford operation and it is named after the Greek god Okeanos, the god of the greater outer sea, and his late wife Anna.
Karousos has put every corner of the historic building to work for the restaurant, from creating a 195-seat dining room to a second-floor presidential room that was the perch for famous visitors to the city. There is also a director’s room that serves 36 and dining areas on the balcony.
The restaurant offers 120 wines stashed in vaults next to the dining room and a cigar room downstairs aimed at the type of diner looking to imbibe some cognac and a good smoke.
Although the a la carte restaurant is the mainstay for OceAnna, it also drums up business by booking corporate outings and weddings. Karousos said most of his clientele come from neighboring Massachusetts towns like Fairhaven and Marion, although he said he set prices at a rate that would attract a wide variety of diners.
“We created a restaurant that will attract people willing to make a 20-minute drive,” he said.
Karousos is keen on keeping a local theme to the restaurant, from using ingredients grown locally to buying fish soon after it comes off the boat.
“Fresh fish doesn’t have that fishy smell,” he said. “We don’t have to use thick creamy sauces to try and cover it up.”
Among the most popular items at the restaurant are scallops, of which the city is a leader in the industry when it comes to catching the mollusk. OceAnna goes through about 70 tons on a Saturday and the seafood staple takes the lead in the restaurant’s more popular dishes, scallop chowder.
According to Karousos, he found the recipe while researching items for his menu that fit the personality of the area.
“It was in a cookbook produced by a newspaper here. I did the research to find out what people here liked and understand who they are. We have to provide a special hospitality,” he said.
He remembered that on a trip to New Bedford to drop off papers to a customer of The Abbey, he first saw the vacant structure that would be his restaurant.
“I drove past this beautiful building and went straight to City Hall to see who owned it and get a tour. I knew I could make it a restaurant,” said Karousos.
Three weeks later, he was in negotiations to buy the building from the city.
It didn’t take long for him to pick up on the idea that downtown New Bedford was a bit wounded as seen by the numerous vacant retail spaces. He recognized more needs of the city as evidenced by the downtown community health care center serving the poor.
“I noticed some of my workers wanted to take 10 minutes to go across the street to the clinic,” he said. “It soon became apparent that I should help support it since it is supporting my employees.”
He held a culinary cook-off that pitted doctors from the health center against each other to raise funds for a pediatric wing. Since its inception two years ago, it has raised about $32,000 and Karousos expects to double that amount this year.
“I believe it is important that every business in the city support a local nonprofit because if the community is healthy, we are healthy,” he said.
He added that his approach to business is as much about supporting the community.
“I don’t believe I am in business to make a lot of money,” he said. “I have
to make money to support what I create.”
