Ed moved to Miami and opened a five-star restaurant.

"But I didn't want that kind of life for my family," Michail said. He went to trade school to learn auto-body repair and got a job with SEPTA.

In 2004, his father sold the last of his pizza stores and retired to spend time fixing up the family's home in Upper Darby and spend time with his grandchildren.

"But he couldn't not work," Michail said. His father, with graying stubbly hair, wearing black-and-white checked chef pants and bearing the creases around his mouth from a perpetually good-natured grin, nodded and said a few confirming words in a thick accent.

So he bought the distressed property in Spruce Hill and, at age 56, came out of retirement.

The Maroulises took out a mortgage on the building, received money for the renovations from relatives, and, when Ed sold his restaurant in Florida last year, happily accepted the high-end furniture from his establishment.

Business has grown incrementally since the opening, promoted mostly by neighbors telling neighbors and spreading the word to friends. The gym and the barbershop across Chestnut Street order takeout nearly every day.

"The community has been so helpful," Jasmine said. "They're the greatest."

On a recent afternoon, Raymond Pitts, who describes himself as "a retired person," was one of three customers. "This is my third time here," he said. "The atmosphere is wholesome. They have no bars on the windows, and people smile when they serve you." Pitts ordered asparagus soup and a rib-eye.

"How's the food? OK?" Maroulis asked.

Pitts, having just finished off the entire meal, leaving only the bones and the garnish, nodded. "Yeah!"

The one problem the restaurant has had stems from Maroulis' magnanimity, Michail said. "He wants to please everybody. And you can't please everybody."

This, he said, explains the Guinness World Records-worthy 10-page, single-spaced menu.

It has intimidated customers, who have trouble trusting that one small family-owned restaurant can turn out cowboy fries (ranch dressing, cheese, spices) as well as stromboli, pasticchio, salade Nicoise, lamb with roasted root vegetables, and quesadillas.

"We're revising it," said Jasmine, who speaks four languages (Armenian, Russian, Greek, and English) and left her job as a medical assistant to help run the restaurant.

The new menus will be pared down. Instead of five lamb dishes, they're cutting down to three.

They're cutting back, a little at least, on the hours, too. Breakfast is served beginning at 9 a.m. instead of 7.

But they're still serving dinner long past 10 p.m., with Michail there most nights until well after his three children's bedtime.

He's keeping his day job at SEPTA, he said, but felt compelled to help his father run the restaurant.

"I wanted to get away from it," he said. "But you can't. You always go back to what you know."