What are the chances that the maker of premium olive oils would also have designed an evening gown for a 19-year-old Sophia Loren? A man would have to have lived at least two lives, if not more, to accomplish these feats. But one man has, La Jollan George Petrou.
Petrou, a native of Greece, is known in La Jolla as the founder and owner of Petrou Foods, an olive grower and maker of premium olive oil and other foods, and a merchant who frequently appears at the La Jolla Open Aire Market. Previously, he was one Athen’s most sought-after fashion designers.
Fashion for Jackie O.
In the 1960s, Petrou was one of the premier fashion designers in Athens. He had trained in Paris under fashion icon Coco Channel, as well as in Milan and Rome. Returning to Greece, he opened three stores in his hometown of Delphi and then moved to Athens. Once in the Greek capital, he opened six more boutiques and designed dresses for the likes of actress Sophia Loren, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, actress Elizabeth Taylor, opera singer Maria Callas and actress Brigitte Bardot.
A flight to freedom
Petrou was at the height of his fashion career when a military junta overthrew the Greek government in 1967, beginning seven years of right-wing military rule. Petrou was critical of the government in a BBC interview. The next day his stores were looted, and he was thrown in jail. The story of his flight to freedom contains many elements of an action movie. With a turn of luck, when Petrou was thrown in jail, the police captain in charge turned out to be a boyhood friend.
Since all detainees were being beaten, Petrou’s friend applied coal dust to make Petrou look black and blue to the other police. In the mean time, a friend chartered a private plane to whisk him out of the country to Switzerland. His wife, Mary, sold her jewelry and other belongings to raise some cash for their new life. Mary had American papers and their hope was to get to the United States. When choosing where to land in the United States, Petrou’s uncle who was the Greek Ambassador to Switzerland asked the American Ambassador where was the best place to live in the U.S. Naturally, the answer was La Jolla, California!
A new beginning in La Jolla
The couple opened a boutique in La Jolla, this time with Mary, also a designer. She designed pieces for actresses Jane Fonda and Lynda Carter. A salon was opened in Scottsdale, Arizona. After the overthrow of the Greek Junta, Petrou maintained six boutiques and a factory in Greece. Some of the hand-woven fabrics as well as embroideries and beadwork were made in his home town of Delphi, Greece.
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Olives & specialty foods
Then in the 1980’s Petrou explored his other passions of food and agriculture. He founded the San Diego company, Petrou Foods. Now, Petrou, 76, can be found working six if not seven days a week, crisscrossing the county, overseeing the production and sale of his olive oil and other specialty foods. His company attends over 20 different farmer’s markets across the San Diego County.
Born in Delphi, Greece, Petrou employs what he calls the Delphi style. The olives are all cured using an ancient method where olives are hand washed, sized, and let to cure in San Diego sea salt for almost one year. He learned about olives and olive oil from his grandfather and has extended that expertise to a variety of other products, including vinegar, feta cheese, pickled garlic and other pickled vegetables.
Garlic: secret of longevity?
In addition to olives, Petrou eats at least three cloves of his pickled garlic every day. He is quick to point out that pickled garlic does not cause bad breath. He recently changed the brake pads on one of his company vans and will be traveling to Greece this year to celebrate his mother’s 110th birthday.
La Jolla is paradise
“La Jolla is Paradise,” says
Petrou not simply for the weather and the beauty, but because La Jolla is in the United States, a free country. Petrou’s life is in La Jolla now even though he still has ties to Greece. It is often true that immigrants appreciate the freedom, opportunity, and liberty that the United States offers the most. Petrou has been blessed with three or four lives. And don’t be surprised if he has more lives to come.
George Petrou can be reached at (858) 458-1981, George@
PetrouFoods.com, or go to: www.PetrouFoods.com. He can also be found at the La Jolla Farmers Market on Sundays. |