Papouli’s founder, George Patras, first began to hone his entrepreneurial instincts in the windy city of Chicago where he managed Butch McGuire’s and The Lodge before establishing some of Chicago’s most loved and famous establishments throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, such as The Original Mother’s, Shenanigans, and Huey’s, and even The Legendary Little Nells in Aspen, Colorado. In the early eighties the Patras family moved to Macon, Georgia for the warmer climate and quickly discovered a need for Greek cuisine in the southeast. George and his wife, Kathye, opened the first Papouli’s in 1986.