Wednesday, May. 06, 2009

This cook has a real taste for adventure

Meet Hamid Ender of Spring Lake, and you can feel the energy radiating from him like a force field.

You'll find Hamid, 49, behind the counter of his Greek restaurant most hours of the day, most days of the week. He always seems to be in motion: talking to construction workers and golfers, cooking souvlaki or making tzatziki sauce for gyros, or cleaning. He seems like a man comfortable and content with who he is and what he does.

"I always find a way to be happy," Hamid says.

But his story might surprise you.

Hamid is from Turkey, from a well-to-do family. Men were not allowed in the kitchen in Turkey, Hamid says. Societal strata dictated where you could go, and whom you can marry and befriend.

Hamid didn't like that.

He studied textile engineering, and didn't like that, either.

So off he went to Switzerland to study hotel management, which included spending six months working in a kitchen learning how to cook from scratch cuisine found all over the world. He discovered he loved cooking.

After he finished school, he worked in management at hotels in Zurich, Switzerland; Frankfurt, Germany; Paris, France; and Istanbul, Turkey. He'd never heard of Myrtle Beach. But he wanted to get out of Europe, create a "new beginning" for himself, own his own restaurant.

Hamid had a friend in Dallas who suggested Hamid move there, so he hopped on a plane to the U.S. But after Hamid spent five or six days looking for a restaurant to buy, he realized he didn't like the city. Too big, not friendly, Hamid thought. He felt disappointed, began to worry about the amount of money he was spending on the trip.

Then a cleaning woman at the small hotel in which Hamid was staying told him about Myrtle Beach - said it was green, had lots of golf courses, was nice. She told him she was going there to visit friends and invited Hamid to come along. Hamid, a self-described adventurer, said yes.

And what an adventure it was.

After two days, the cleaning woman and her boyfriend said they were splitting up and left Myrtle Beach, leaving Hamid - who spoke little English and knew no one else in the area - alone. He wandered up to Little River, made conversation with a bar owner there and told him he was looking to buy a restaurant. The bar owner suggested he buy in Myrtle Beach.

So Hamid found a real estate broker and bought a French fondue restaurant. He later sold it and opened a German joint. He sold that and moved back to Turkey in 1996, worked as a chef, but discovered he was "homesick" for the Myrtle Beach area, so he came back in 1997.

He bought Grecian Corner - in the Galleria (Kroger) shopping center at North Kings Highway and Lake Arrowhead Road - from a friend, and Hamid has been running it ever since.

He married his wife - Gonca Ender, 42 - in 1998 in an Elvis wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Their two children - daughter Ela, 8, and son, Deniz, 5 - attend Carolina Forest Elementary School.

Gonca and the kids go back to Turkey once a year to visit family, but not Hamid. He's too busy working.

The restaurant is open six days a week in winter and seven days a week in summer.

"This is not only my job but also my passion," Hamid says, "You have to have love for what you're doing."

Hamid takes the food orders, cooks the food and serves the customers. He likes it much more than hotel management.

"When you're the manager, you don't see the results," Hamid says. But in his restaurant: "I create something; I see the result right away."

When Hamid first took over the restaurant, his pleasure in seeing results might have been a tad overly enthusiastic.

"At first I was so bad," he said.

He'd give customers their food, watch them sit down at a table and take their first bite, then eagerly call out, "Do you like it?"

Some customers were startled, so Hamid now is a little more laid back with customers. But he still wants to make sure people enjoy his cooking, and he still wants some personal interaction.

"I wish everybody would eat here so I could see their face."

Hamid loves getting to know people and trying to figure out what they might like to eat.

He says he runs his restaurant with the three C's in mind: cooking (well), cleanliness and conscience.

He's proud of how efficiently he uses the shop's 300 square feet of space. The cozy, clean environment and genuine customer service mean repeat business - which means relationships that keep Hamid happy and motivated.

"I have the smallest restaurant in Myrtle Beach," Hamid says with a smile. "I'm the last of the Mohicans."