After one longtime business left Nashua, a longtime area businessman saw an opportunity.

Nick Tourlitis, who has owned several restaurants in the area, is turning part of the former Aubuchon Hardware store on Main Street into a new gyro restaurant.

Tourlitis figures it will be about a month and a half before he can open the doors to his newest venture, which is still unnamed. It will also feature Greek food such as salads and desserts, but he said “I’m going to concentrate on the gyro.”

Tourlitis, who owns 7-Star Pizza down the street at the corner of Main and West Hollis streets, was busily renovating Aubuchon’s former paint shop Tuesday for his son Basil, who will run the operation.

“I come from the island of Crete. Every summer I go to Greece. All my friends own gyro shops,” he said. “I’ve been researching about 10 years now.”

Tourlitis has owned several businesses in the area, including the former Nick’s Sports Bar, and at one time ran the Hudson House of Pizza with his wife, Maria, but serving up dishes from his homeland has long been his goal.

“That was my dream, to open something Greek,” he said.

Aubuchon Hardware was a mainstay of downtown Nashua for 78 years before it shut in September, victim of declining sales.

It was one of several prominent downtown establishments to shut in the last quarter of 2015, including Villa Banca and Unum restaurants and the Silverlight Candle and Gift Shop, next door to Aubuchon.

Since then, Fratello’s has said it is moving into the Villa Banca space. Tourlitis, occupying part of the Aubuchon space, will also help fill in storefront gaps.

Tourlitis said the key to a good gyro, a traditional Greek food consisting of thin strips of meat with a yogurt sauce inside pita bread, is fresh meat. Tourlitis has ordered specialty broilers that will cook thin strips of pork, lamb and chicken on skewers, and has talked with a farmer to explore the possibility of using locally sourced product.

Reflecting on his opportunities in the United States, Tourlitis said, “I feel beautiful. I love this country.”

He said he went to school in Greece to learn how to work on ship engines.

“I left school after two years and started working in the Merchant Marine,” he said. “I took a boat from Greece but traveled all over the world. I came to the United States on a lot on ships. I jumped off the boat in Staten Island, N.Y.,” at age 17.

“I knew Manhattan,” he said. “I took the ferry and went to Manhattan. I went to a Greek restaurant and asked them for a job. I had $18 in my pocket.”

“After six months, I got a job at a doughnut shop. That’s where I met my wife. After a year and a half, I got married to a beautiful lady. She’s still beautiful,” he said, smiling.

Tourlitis said the only job he could get was washing dishes because at the time he couldn’t speak English. Eventually he moved to Massachusetts and opened a pizza shop.

After he came to Hudson, “then I started thinking about gyros because there was nothing around here,” he said.

Tourlitis said the restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. weeknights and have extended hours on weekends to serve the later crowd.

Don Himsel can be reached at 594-6590, dhimsel@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DonH.

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