ROTTERDAM — Tops American Grill, Bakery & Bar has long been a Rotterdam staple, not only for its popular food, but also for it’s impact on the community.
There has been a family-style restaurant at the Five Corners in Rotterdam since the 1930s. Current owner Evan Christou is a third-generation owner. His family has owned the restaurant for the past 70 years.
Offering a wide variety of breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-house bakery treats, Tops has something for everyone.
The current restaurant at 351 Duanesburg Road is the third building to stand on the property. The original restaurant, around until the mid-1960s, was an old rail car, and was first called The Sodium Diner. In the 1930s, General Electric began using a new technology called sodium-powered street lights. One of the first runs the new lights made was from the Five Corners to the town of Delanson.
In 1953, Christou’s family bought the restaurant. His great-uncle Steve had been working in a New Jersey restaurant called Tops Diner so, when he moved to New York, he decided to re-name the Five Corners spot after the one in New Jersey. He thought it would be good luck, Christou said.
In 1960, Steve sold the restaurant to his nephew, Peter Christou, who is Evan Christou’s uncle. He replaced the original rail car restaurant with a more modern, modular-style diner. The new diner was built on the same property and lasted from the 1960s up until 2006. In 1969, Evan Christou’s father took over for his brother and partnered with his brothers Nick and Jim.
In 1987, Evan Christou joined the family business, and has been there for the past 36 years. In 2006, Tops was rebranded and rebuilt.
“There’s a lot of family history, and a lot of community history,” Evan Christou said. “There’s a lot of investment, not only in the building, but in our community, and we’re very proud of that.”
The Daily Gazette recently spoke with Evan. Here is what he had to say:
Question: What are some of the most popular items that you serve?
Answer: We do breakfast, lunch and dinner, we do our own homemade corn beef hash, that’s a very popular breakfast item. We’re well-known for our homemade soups, probably our two most popular sandwiches are our turkey club and our reuben. [At] dinnertime, we do traditional comfort foods, but we also do some items that are a little more on the higher end, we’ve got some very qualified sautée chefs. Comfort foods are still a really big part of our menu, and a very big draw, but we also appeal to a market that likes something a little bit different, whether it’s a higher end pasta dish, or shrimp dish, or we do a lot of risotto. Of course we have the full bar, and we have an in-house pastry chef who makes all of our desserts in-house. He’s been with us since 2006 when this building opened up.
Q: Should customers make reservations for your restaurant?
A: We appreciate reservations for larger parties, so we can be prepared for them and set up. We also have our back room which we close off for private parties, showers, business lunches, things like that, and we provide the food. Reservations are not necessary, but we do appreciate them for larger parties.
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Q: What are some of your favorite things about running your restaurant?
A: Being an integral part of the community. We do a lot of dine-to-donate events with local schools and sports teams and charities. Pre-COVID, we used to do a lot of fundraising with the Autism Society, we raised over $30,000 for autism in the years before COVID. Hopefully now that COVID is pretty much behind us, it would be nice to get that going again, there’s a lot of moving parts with other groups to make that happen. I always say I’m not only invested in this community, but I’m vested in this community. I happen to be on the Rotterdam Town Board, my children grew up here and went to school here, so on a lot of levels I’m involved. We’re very Rotterdam proud, and we like to think of us as Rotterdam’s hometown diner.
Q: As far as costs go, what are your customers spending on average?
A: I’d say around $20 for dinner, and maybe $15 for lunch. We held off raising prices even through the craziness with the price of eggs and chicken and everything over the last couple of years, because we try to remain sensitive to our community. We have not raised prices in two-and-a-half years. It’s easy for someone looking in to say you have to raise your prices, but you have to be sensitive to what your community can afford to spend, and we’re here for the long-term not just for today.
Q: How would you describe the atmosphere of your restaurant?
A: Very family-friendly, extremely kid-friendly. We want people to be comfortable, and we’re fun.
Q: What would you say to someone who has never been to your restaurant, why should they consider coming here to eat?
A: We’re a local landmark. They should try it because we’ve been here for 70 years. We focus on quality, and we usually get it right, and if we don’t get it right, we make it right. We have people who have been coming here for years and years. It’s always been where good people come to get good food.
Q: Is there anything else readers should know about your restaurant?
A: The owner is always here, and if I’m not here, my sister is here. We’ll make sure you’ll leave with a full belly.