Dean Mavrikis’ career has followed an unlikely path that had led him from helping his father run Jonathan’s restaurant in Garden City Park to a film career in which he reported to Stephen Speilberg and now back as co-owner of Jonathan’s with his father.
“I got a little tired of the film business. It’s a major daily grind,” Mavrikis explained.
And, Mavrikis said, he is excitied with the possibilities at Jonathan’s.
“Our future plans are to carry Jonathan’s to a level where our new future clientele will see that it is a landmark,” Mavrikis said. “Our job is to keep everybody satisifed.”
Mavrikis worked with his father to open Jonathan’s as a family restaurant in July 1992.
He recalled the restaurant he and his older brother Peter helped his father, Jon, open as an “all-American bar and grill cuisine” with French accents.
With his father’s support, Mavrikis left the business to earn master of fine arts degree from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. That fueled a 16-year career in film production on the west coast.
At Amblin Studios, he ran the studio’s Chesterfield Film program for offer young filmmakers, and reported directly to Spielberg. Producers would submit their films and the studio would select 10 or 20 filmmakers would have a shot at submitting scripts, Mavrikis recalled. “Free Willy II’ was among the scripts the unit ultimately selected for production.
He went on to do production work for Warner Bros. for two years.
And then he decided the restaurant business was a better idea after all.
He opened a restaurant, Citine, in West Hollywood in partnership with his brother Peter. They ran it successfully for three years, until his brother died. Mavrikis sold the restaurant to Disney executive Michael Owens after his brother’s death.
Mavrikis then decided to come back to his native Long Island and work with his father again. They’ve worked harmoniously as partners the past six years.
“We’re partners and good friends,” Mivrikis said. “We connect. We established a connection and a good working relationship a long time ago,” he said.
He said his father’s support of his goal for a career in film production was very meaningful to him during his time in that business.
“That’s what allowed me to stay in L.A.” he said.
Mavrikis grew up in Garden City, attended the Waldorf School, and then earned a masters of science in physics at Bradford College in Massachusetts.
Today he lives with his wife, Nicole and their two children, in Oyster Bay, and focuses on a long time view on what his family’s restaurant business.
Jonathan’s has had success with doing that by offering a mix of cuisines over the past 20 years and remade itself to a combination of American grill and diverse Mediterrannean dishes.
“Now we’ve combined those flavors with a more streamlined, domesticated cuisine,” he said.
The regular menu at the restaurant, which is located at 2499 Jericho Turnpike, has a distinctively Mediterranean influence, including dishes such as Liguini alla Tuscana, made with jumbo shrimp, black mussels, little neck clams and sea scallops in a basil tomato sauce, Shrimp Scampi, made with a garlic Chardonnay lemon sauce, and Rigatoni Melanzone, made with sauteed eggplant, sweet peppers, zucchinni and fresh mozarella, as well as Seafood Paella.
This month, in observance of the restaurant’s 20th anniversary, a special menu of entrees includes Salmon Mediterrannean, Fusilli with Lamb Sausage, Chicken Caprese, Pork Schnitzel and Filet Minonette Diane, cubes of filet mignon with capers and shallots flambeed with a brandy glaze. This month, those entrees are offered on a price fixe menu at $24.95 for a three-course meal.
“We pretty much do a little bit of everything, with a strong influence of Mediterannean,” said Jonathan’s chef Alain Ribiere.
Ribiere took over the kitchen eight months after the restaurant opened and has been there since. Trained in French cuisine at the New York Restaurant School, Ribiere worked as a chef at La Cigne in Manhattan for five years before opening his own restaurant in Rockland County, Les Bon Copains, for two years before coming to Jonathan’s.
After closing his restaurant, he responded to an newspaper ad Jonathan Mavrikis has posted, went to see him that same day and got an immediate offer.
“Would you like to start today,” the elder Mavrikis asked him.
From that beginning, Ribiere has moved to managing partner in the business and has developed a deep personal connections with the Mavrikis family.
“I got involved with the family and became part of the family,” Ribiere said.
The family is also in partnership with Nick Tsakonis, who runs the Pop City Grill in Elmhurst, Queens, formerly the Pop Diner – and before that, the Sage Diner.
Mavrikis credits Jonathan’s success to Ribiere’s diversity of dishes, saying steady clientele “can relate to Alain’s cuisine in many different ways.”
Along with his training, Ribiere also credits his parents – both chefs themselves – with influencing him.
Working with his father in Manhattan’s Sky Club was his first job out of restaurant school. So some of his parents’ recipes are adapted on the menu at Jonathan’s. There’s some Asian and French dishes along with the Mediterranean “ and we try to keep the American there as well,” Ribiere said.
This month, in addition to the price fixe dinners, Jonathan’s is offering half-priced bottled wines on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, along with a selection of 30 wines by the glass. Jonathan’s also runs a daily happy hour with half prices on all drinks between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays.
