As Owensboro celebrates Pizza Week, it feels fitting to spotlight George and Nancy Skiadas, a couple whose love story is as much about food as it is about family.
George first attended Kentucky Wesleyan College in the 1960s, but his passion for skydiving and overseas travel drew him away before he could finish. After working in the family business in Greece and navigating the upheaval of the Cyprus conflict, he returned to the United States with only $25 in his pocket.
Rhode Island relatives introduced him to the pizza business, where his uncle taught him “the passion, the love for it, the caring about making the dough and the sauce and how it’s best prepared.”
By 1975, he had opened his first pizza shop in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
“I still have my first dollar that I ever made,” George said. “I’ve done that with every restaurant I’ve ever had.”
Years later, he returned to Kentucky Wesleyan to complete his degree. That decision set the stage for his most important partnership.
Nancy, widowed and raising her young son Ben, had also returned to Wesleyan to pursue a teaching degree. Professors and friends played matchmaker, and soon the two were inseparable.
Nancy said their younger friends on campus often referred to them as the “cool old sweetheart couple.”
They married in 1993 in the front yard of Nancy’s home, surrounded by family and friends.
“It was one of those beautiful summer days,” Nancy recalled. “There were neighborhood kids on their bikes watching from across the street. It felt casual, but it was full of love.”
Ben, then 8 years old, stood between them during the ceremony.
“He got married with us,” George said.
Soon after, George formally adopted him. For George, stepping into fatherhood was natural.
“Ben made it easy for me,” he said. “He accepted me. Children can do a number on you if they want to, but he was just a sweet young man, and he still is.”
The restaurant they opened together also began with family. Originally called The Famous Deli, George intended it to be a breakfast and lunch spot catering to courthouse and bank workers.
That schedule didn’t last long.
“He was getting up at four in the morning to make bread,” Nancy said. “That lasted maybe 6 months before he said, ‘I’ve got to get a liquor license.’”
With beer, wine, and dinner service, The Famous Deli transformed into The Famous Bistro. The change also allowed George to showcase Mediterranean flavors that reflected his heritage. Though in the early 1990s, that was easier said than done.
“Kentucky restaurants didn’t have the ingredients I needed,” George said. “I had to ship filo dough, feta cheese, even salami from Brooklyn.”
Over time, suppliers caught up.
“Now I can get anything I want,” he said. “Back then, we encompassed the whole Mediterranean basin — Greek, Italian, French, Spanish. Some of those dishes, like our lamb, are still staples.”
Pizza, though, never left the menu. It became the bridge between George’s first business and Ben’s first job.
As a boy, Ben wanted to earn money, so George paid him a nickel for every pizza box he folded.
“He must have made two dollars one day, and he wasn’t too impressed,” Nancy said. “But it was important to George that he started at the bottom and learned the business.”
The Bistro grew alongside Owensboro’s downtown.
“There was a time when I’d walk out the door and all you saw were empty storefronts,” George said. “No business, no life, no traffic. Now we have a legitimate downtown, and it’s been marvelous to be a part of that.”
For the Skiadas family, the restaurant is inseparable from their life together.
“The experience that I’ve had at the Bistro for 32 years has been nothing but extraordinary,” George said. “I’ve had customers who were little kids when they first came in, and now they’re bringing their kids. It’s been the greatest experience in business I’ve ever had.”
Nancy added that their story still feels a bit serendipitous.
“Neither of us was really looking for this,” she said. “But when we saw each other from afar at Wesleyan, something just clicked.”
From a front-yard wedding to three decades of shaping Owensboro’s dining scene, George and Nancy’s story is one of resilience, tradition, and love. From pizza boxes to Mediterranean dishes, it’s a story Owensboro can savor.
