Workers handcuffed as restaurant robbed

No one is injured as two men enter the back of John's Steak and Seafood, brandish guns and empty two safes.

By CARY DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 27, 2000

ZEPHYRHILLS -- When two men showed up at the back door of John's Steak and Seafood Restaurant on Monday morning saying they were making a delivery, employees didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"Then, all of a sudden, boom, they were inside, pointing guns at us," said restaurant co-owner Dean Koutroumanis.

At 9:45 a.m., the robbers, wearing baseball hats and sunglasses and brandishing semiautomatic handguns, ordered the five employees inside the restaurant to lie face-down on the floor and told them to keep still and silent, Koutroumanis said. When a sixth employee showed up for work in the middle of the holdup, the robbers turned their guns on her and gave her the same instructions.

The robbers then handcuffed the employees and emptied two safes, taking an undisclosed amount of cash, said Zephyrhills police Capt. Richard Scudder. The men ran out of the restaurant, at 38361 County Road 54, and drove away in an unknown direction.

No one was injured in the robbery. The robbers remained at large late Monday.

Police described the robbers as two black men in their mid 30s. One was between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet tall and 180 to 200 pounds. The other was about 6 feet 2 inches and 250 pounds.

Koutroumanis said employees didn't provide a detailed description because they were told not to look up from the floor.

"They were adamant about us being face-down so we couldn't get a look at them," Koutroumanis said. "So we just cooperated. It wasn't time to be a hero."

Koutroumanis said the restaurant had been burglarized at least twice since it opened in 1986.

"But nothing with this kind of audacity has ever happened here," he said.

What makes the robbery especially brazen, he said, is that it occurred in daylight, in a busy section of town. The restaurant is across the street from Zephyrhills High School.

Lying face-down on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back, Koutroumanis said he prayed the robbers would spare him and his employees.

"Take anything you want," he recalled saying to himself. "But please don't shoot. Everybody here has kids."

With the horror of the incident still hanging over it, the restaurant opened for business at 11 a.m. Koutroumanis and the five other victims of the robbery took the rest of the day off.

"John's is open for business, just like always," Koutroumanis said. "But you can't help wondering: "When is this going to happen again?'

"These were not good people," he added. "But at least they had enough sense not to hurt anybody."

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