Demetri Tsolakis grew up doing homework at a booth in his family’s restaurant, watching guests turn from strangers into friends. He learned English from customers, hospitality from his parents, and quickly discovered that his happiest moments happened in the dining room.
Following His Dreams
His parents wanted him to be a lawyer or a doctor. He tried the finance route, crunching numbers in a suit instead of greeting tables. But the spreadsheets never smiled back. Two years later, he walked away from corporate life and returned to the only work that ever felt like home.
In 2017, he opened Greco, a fast-casual Greek street food concept in Boston built around simple, authentic flavors and the warmth of a traditional taverna. The opening became legend: a blizzard, a Patriots championship parade, a partner sprinting through snow to grab the city permit, and a line out the door by noon. That first day captured everything Demetri wanted hospitality to be, chaotic, joyful, and full of heart.
Growing Xenia Greek Hospitality
Since then, his company Xenia Greek Hospitality has grown into a family of restaurants, each one telling a different Greek story. Every concept lives by the same philosophy, philoxenia, the ancient Greek belief in turning strangers into friends.
That belief also guides how Demetri runs the business behind the scenes. He knows true hospitality starts by freeing people to focus on people. That is why his team partnered with KitchenSync, a platform that now handles their bookkeeping and financial reporting virtually. What once took twenty to thirty hours of manual work each week, spreadsheets, emails, and weekend catch-up, is now instant and accessible in real time.
Great Partners Like KitchenSync
With KitchenSync, Demetri and his team can track rising costs, make faster decisions, and spend more time on the floor, not behind a desk. Technology, he says, should never replace the human touch. It should protect it.
Today, as an adjunct professor at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration, he teaches that same lesson. Numbers matter, but people matter more. As he reminds his students with a favorite line from Homer, “A guest never forgets the host that treated him kindly.”
Tech and Family
That simple truth fuels everything he builds, and it is why, even in a digital world, Demetri Tsolakis will always lead with hospitality. His work with KitchenSync is proof that technology and tradition can live side by side.
The right tools create more time to connect, more energy for creativity, and more chances to make guests feel seen. For Demetri, that is what hospitality has always been about serving people with intention and heart.
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