The Unofficial History of Gold Coast Finer Foods
INTRODUCTION
One could imagine the situation. A Greek immigrant family is moving to Chicago, exploring all the possibilities of living in a brand-new country; in search of the forever-elusive American dream.
Americana’s sceneries, sounds, scents, and tastes fill their nostrils like Pepe Lepew. However, the senses miss the intricate and complex flavors of home. The family desperately searches the city, looking for any retailer that sells the proper ingredients, to no avail.
Then, one day, they hear of a little shop in Gary, Indiana: Gold Coast Finer Foods. Standing silently at 1324 W. 5th Avenue, this store is a fond memory of many baby boomers from around the Midwest.
Gold Coast Finer Foods (GCFF) was a specialty shop nearly entirely dedicated to Mediterranean cuisine. While I am not privy to the entire lineup of products the business sold, one could imagine dried spices, specific produce items, and a deli.
The deli at GCFF is what is remembered most by its former patrons. Greek olives come in a wide range of varieties, so it’s possible GCFF sold every single type. Cheese is also essential to the equation. Feta cheese, tyropites, mousaka, and pastitsio were highly sought for and were of a certain quality that tasted quite different from their pre-packaged counterparts.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
According to the United States Office of Education, Division of International Education (1957), Gold Coast refers to the British West Africa area before achieving its independence as Ghana.
West Africa was the launch point from where, in medieval times, empires transported gold to Europe. Due to their specialized seafaring skills, European kingdoms hired Greeks to ferry gold from Africa to Europe.
In GCFF’s case, Greeks ferried Mediterranean flavors into thousands of homes from around the Midwest.
THE BORNS BROTHERS’ ERA
The family known as the Borns Brothers were born in Germany. They immigrated to America, settling in Coldwater, Ohio.
The primary Borns children, Frederick, Jr., and Leonard, were born and raised in Coldwater. However, in 1882, Fred Sr. relocated the family to a farm just outside Hobart, Indiana, when Fred was 8.
In 1909, the Borns Brothers opened a bar inside the Central Hotel, 3439 Michigan Avenue, in Indiana Harbor, Indiana. Fred married Margaret M. Fox, a fellow Coldwater, Ohio native, the following year. Margaret moved to the Region and helped run the business.
The Borns sold the hotel in 1910, opening a grocery store in the new town of Gary, Indiana. The store was named Gem Market House, located at 700 Washington Street.
They expanded into a franchise, with stores operating at 101 E. 5th Avenue in Gary, 3606 Parish Avenue, and 144th Street & Forsyth Avenue (Indianapolis Blvd) in East Chicago.
In 1919, the Borns helped found the Gary Retail Grocers Association. The Association was an alliance with several grocers, including Julius Matthies and Joseph Tittle.
By 1920, the building we know today as Gold Coast Finer Foods got constructed. The Sanborn map listed the address as 1322 W. 5th Avenue, but the current address is 1324.
GCFF’s function was essentially the same as it always had been. A grocery store was up front, with a block of apartment buildings built behind and above. Many people called the dwelling home from all walks of life and immigrant status through its earliest years.
Frederick Borns, the principal proprietor, died in 1954 at 82 years old. It seems all businesses associated with him shut down after his death. However, his wife, Margaret, would enjoy a long and prosperous career as the president of both the Gary Public Library Board and the Lake County Library Board.
THE ZEMBILLAS ERA
Shortly before the death of Frederick Borns, little did Skevofylax (Steve) Zembillas know that he would enter into legendary status.
Mr. Steve Z., as Gary locals sometimes referred to him, immigrated to America in 1937, according to Greek Music in America, by Stavros K. Frangos. However, the family explained that he came in 1936. Steve settled in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Tarpon Springs had a substantial Greek population. Being a Gulf Coast city, it could have reminded the people of the environment of their native Greece.
According to Demetri Zembillas, “The Tarpon Springs-based industry that attracted many Greek immigrants was the sponge industry. All the Greeks there were sponge divers or boat captains.”
After serving in the US Navy during World War II, he returned to Florida to find a depleted industry.
In 1947, a red tide severely crushed industry along that area of the Gulf, which “decimated the natural sponge beds,” Demetri said. The situation got so bad that many Greeks moved out of Tarpon Springs, seeking better opportunities elsewhere. A bunch ended up in Northwest Indiana.
According to Greek Music in America, in 1946, Steve opened a store in Tarpon Springs and became a music producer. His genre of choice was Kalymnian, a Greek folk style of music native to Kalymnos Island and its connected Dodecanese island chain.
The book states Steve formed Grecophon Record Company in Gary. However, the book also says that Steve recorded Greek music in Tarpon Springs, so it’s unclear if the label came before or after he moved to Gary.
“To be honest, his life as a single man is a little clouded in mystery for us, except we know he liked to live it up,” Demetri explained. “He could really spin a tale.”
Though he saw some success, music ultimately did not work out as he liked. So after marrying Stamatia Georgiades in 1955, Steve shut Grecophone Records for good.
Three years later, in 1958 (according to his son Demetri), Steve was the proprietor of Gold Coast Finer Foods. According to Ancestry, several Greek immigrants lived inside the building’s apartment block. So it’s possible Steve caught wind of the vacant storefront this way. He also obtained the nickname “Mr. Gold Coast.”
His work ethic was extraordinary, working fifteen hours daily — every day — for nearly 27 years straight. According to the Gary Post-Tribune, Steve instilled his work ethic into his children, who helped operate the store.
“While it is true that he worked seven days/365 a year for all those years,” said Demetri, “except for the day of his mother’s funeral, he tapered down to 12-hour days in [his] latter years.”
However, things were not always rosy. Unfortunately, Gold Coast was the target of many robberies, peaking in the mid-60s.
“My father was held up at gunpoint 11 times before we hired a security guard and armed ourselves,” according to Demetri. “Then they got us again when our security took the night off. So 12 times total.”
To remedy this, Steve hired Charles Lee Murphy, a black man, as his security guard. “The toughest man in town,” Demetri said of Murphy. “Nobody messed with him. His presence kept us safe.”
The hiring of Murphy was a sign of a considerable shift in Gary’s culture. Then, times were rough, and the scourage of drugs, race, and social tensions mixed to create a violent atmosphere that affected the neighborhood.
“The first man to hold up our dad at his business was white,” Demetri recalled. “I remember a white man trying to break into our home when I was a child. After that, there were a lot of black gangs, white gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, etc.”
Despite all of this, Steve was a very religious man. Sometimes, he would visit the local church down the street from the store and sit in services. “His love of his customers was unsurpassed, which to me,” Demetri stated, “was a massive part of his success and acceptance by the neighborhood.”
A fire burned many of the apartments behind Gold Coast so that revenue stream was closed off. Steve Z. resisted the temptation to close shop and reopen in Merrillville, as hundreds of other business proprietors had done. Yet, though the crime and harmful business atmosphere contributed, it was a sneak that became the straw that broke the camel’s back.
In 1984, an unknown party paid off Gold Coast’s tax bill, then refused to renew its lease. Unfortunately, this part of the story is very murky, and no verifiable information is available. Regardless of the matter, Gold Coast Finer Foods, as most knew it, was closed that year.
After the departure of the Zembillas family, it’s alleged that a man by the name of Eddie Miles became the owner. He is possibly the one responsible for not renewing the lease as well. Unfortunately, there is no information available about Miles at this time. I will update if any becomes available, but we can skip him.
THE FINAL ERA
What happened to Gary has been harped on countless times over the past several decades. Fate took its fortunes away as quickly as it had obtained them. The city has been economically ravished for even longer.
The mid-80s to early 2000s were very rough on the struggling city. I believe this gets reflected in the story of Gold Coast.
In 1992, a young man named Muneer Issa Abdel Rahman (Irham) obtained ownership of the store. However, he kept the Gold Coast name. Rahman immigrated to the States with his brothers in 1982 from the West Bank. He became a naturalized citizen in 1989.
The now ghettoized neighborhood was the location of countless fights, shootings, murders, and assaults. Rahman and his family blended into Gary’s culture quite well. They conducted their own crimes, including food stamp fraud, illegal pawning, gun running, and drug dealing.
Thieves constantly tested the Rahmans. They were no punks, however. They voraciously defended Gold Coast. Sometimes the brothers would succeed in shooting robbers who attempted to hit the store at gunpoint. Yet, no matter how many people they dispelled, trouble kept coming.
In November of 1995, Muneer was arrested for three counts of coke possession. The arrest prompted law enforcement to open a probe against Gold Coast, which was already under suspicion because of massive amounts of food stamps circulating through it.
At this time, I lived on W. 5th Avenue with my mother and brother. We went to Gold Coast regularly and never observed anything out of the ordinary while inside. The clerks were always nice to us, but of course, being children, we’re not looking for signs of drug dealings and whatnot. We want push-pops and juice.
Then, in January 1995, an undercover agent exchanged $2000 worth of food stamps with Gold Coast employees for $1000 in actual cash and some guns. The following week, Gold Coast got raided by the Lake County Drug Task Force. Muneer was arrested and charged with three counts of welfare fraud, one count of dealing coke, and one of conspiracy to sell. Other people in his home, 449 Madison Street, were also arrested.
They were freed but under pressure from the law. Yet, Muneer’s luck would run out.
On December 28, 1995, at 8:30 am, Muneer opened Gold Coast. One customer was waiting for the store to be opened. Muneer served the customer, who left without incident. Five minutes later, another customer entered the store to find Muneer dead. A robber blew his face off. The register was empty, and a gun was missing.
Though it seems Muneer shot the assailant, who left a trail of blood that led outside the store, the police never solved the case.
Though I lived nearby at the time, I do not remember this incident.
More fraud, shootings, robberies, and fires plagued Gold Coast for the next several years. Finally, the store got renamed S &S Finer Foods, which put up a facade of cleaning up its act. Unfortunately, the new proprietors were even worse than the Rahmans.
A tipster informed the city of health violations at S & S. Health inspectors arrived in 2006 and found that the store was selling outdated milk and meat to customers.
The building was in dire disrepair, with a leaking roof, black mold in the walls, and faulty wiring in the vicinity of water. Tiles on the floor and ceiling were missing. Rotting timber was exposed to customers through holes in the roof, which leaked brackish water around food items for sale. The food storage area was just as bad. Though the apartment section was vacant and inaccessible, they too contained exposed wiring and crumbling asbestos-lined pipes.
Next, garbage from who-knows-where littered the property on all sides, which attracted hordes of flies and giant rats. Finally, to top it all off, S & S had no legal operating license. So Gary had to inspect the store for it to get that license, which the city never granted.
“No amount of money would be enough to save the building. This place needs to be condemned. It’s just that simple,” said City Inspector Cassandra Carter.
Gold Coast Finer Foods, or S & S, was unceremoniously closed in the summer of 2006. The building has sat vacant ever since.
Special thanks to Demetri Zembillas for filling in some gaps, providing better perspectives about the Zembillas era, and providing pictures!