By Taylor Adams Cogan
The floor creaks a bit when you walk in. Led Zeppelin plays over the speakers. The walls are so full of mementos and artifacts, you almost don’t hear staff greeting you as you take it all in. There’s a smell in the air: Fries? Is that tuna? Even a hint of something sweet like baklava?
A first-timer to St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin is in for a good time. And for any Dallasite who’s been here a minute knows, it’s a standby not just because of its menu, but because the space welcomes you like family, and that’s entirely by design.
Pete Zotos may be the man you’ve seen behind the bar for decades at this Commerce Street restaurant, but this man has worked in a restaurant since he was 9 years old.
“When we moved from Odessa to San Angelo, [my parents] started a restaurant. It was my dad and a waitress, and he didn’t have a dishwasher, so he was like, ‘Hey, man, can you help your dad out?’ I was like, “Sure.’”
Even though the West Texas kid was in elementary school when he started in the industry, he followed a typical progression, working his way up from dishwasher to busboy, to server, to cook, and eventually helping them close at night.
“It was a true mom-and-pop; Mom and Dad worked side-by-side, and we had that going for us,” he says. “It wasn’t a total greasy spoon, but it was close: breakfast in the morning, and a daily special, burgers, and stuff like that.”
He made his way to Dallas, thanks to his wanting to study marketing and art history at Southern Methodist University. But the Hilltop didn’t keep him out of restaurants: Come winter and summer, he’d make his way to his uncle’s restaurant in Dallas, Lucas B&B. (The neon sign still stands outside Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen on Oak Lawn Avenue.) And, he kept with it.
“I tried to get into the advertising world, but bartending just made too much money, so I was like, ‘I guess I’ll do this for a while,’” he says.
He did take a stab at the commercial real estate business, but it was 1985, and he says that wasn’t the best time to establish yourself in the field.
“So, I picked up a couple of shifts at a place called Dick’s Last Resort in West End,” he says.
After working at the flagship restaurant for a while, he started opening restaurants for them across the country – in San Antonio, Chicago, and San Diego. But when he told them he wanted to go into management, they said yes, but with that came a deal-breaker: He’d have to move out of Dallas.
Thankfully, that was a no-go. He started figuring out a way to keep him and his family here, which led to his partnership with Sean O’Hara and the establishment of Pete and Sean’s Angry Dog in 1990. As the business found its way, relationships changed, and Pete decided he needed to do his own thing. In 1994, all the way at the end of the same block as Angry Dog, St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin came to life.
“We always picked Deep Ellum for everything because it was not the mainstream, the rent was a little bit cheaper,” he says. “The name came from the saint of all fishermen, St. Peter, and the dancing marlin is what we want to see at the end of our line: When they come out of the water, they dance.”
He’s dedicated to that theme – while it is a “brand,” that word sounds too corporate for what we’re talking about here. Plastic marlins float vertically in your water or cocktail glass. Giant fish hang from the ceiling, like they’re mid-flight over your date night. If you didn’t know what this fish looked like before, you do after setting foot in here.
Pete’s close with his family: he has pride in speaking both about his parents and his three kids (all Texas A&M grads, which he’s also proud of). So it only makes sense his business would include them.
“My brother came up with the menu, and he was with me at the start – he helped at Pete and Sean’s Angry Dog. We developed everything; it’s kind of a family deal,” he says. “My mom helped with the menu. There are all kinds of little tweaks that came from the Zotos family.”
That includes everything he learned from his dad: “The way he did things, if you do things different, it’s gotta work.”
Even the idea of a Texas A&M student or alum with their Aggie ring getting 12% off at the restaurant is from his kids.
Pete says some people call him a hoarder. Not only rude, but untrue: He’s a collector. If your conversation at the table bores you or just has a simple lull, you can keep yourself occupied by what’s on the walls (or even under the surface of a table). It’s not random; everything has a story.
“I’ve been going to estate sales and flea markets since I was 10 years old. Anytime dad got a beer sign at his restaurant, it was in my room; it’s always been something I’ve had an eye for,” he says. “There’s not one piece of anything on the wall that doesn’t have a story behind it. There’s some really funkadelic stuff on the wall; it’s got some great stories. I feel like a museum curator instead of a restaurant owner some days.”
The menu at Pete’s is lengthy, and any local will tell you their favorites: the tuna’s going to be mentioned a lot if you ask around.
“I don’t think anybody does tuna better than us in Dallas. That’s it. Whatever it is, that secret charbroiler grill we got, they always taste fantastic,” he says.
But the Greek salad is exceptional, Mama’s baked garlic is succulent, the wings are perfectly cooked, and every pasta is worth getting on repeat. Somehow, the fries are always crisp on the outside and pillowy inside. Do save room for dessert, because you can’t miss Connie’s baklava or the classic chocolate sheet cake sprinkled with pecans.
Pete has made Deep Ellum his home for business for more than three decades.
The wild thing is, you get there in 1990, and there’s probably maybe 10 places to go eat, not even that, maybe 5 places, and they’re pretty much all on Elm Street,” he says. “A guy named Bakers Ribs had his place; there was Crescent City [Café]. They had an art walk – they painted the sidewalks in front of every building.
“It was more of when you moved down there, you were part of a community. You weren’t just a business that opened up. That’s what I always liked about Deep Ellum: it’s community, whether you liked them, a business down the street, or what. You’ll defend it to the death is the right way to say it.”
There’s a reason people appreciate this Deep Ellum restaurant: It’s been there so long, we have memories that are starting to grow fuzzy, and every time we go, the food is reliably good, and the staff is consistent.
“We treat you like family – until it gets busy, but you’re part of our deal. It probably goes back to being Greek, because we never meet a stranger,” he says. “When dad has his place, I always thought it was cool that he was hands-on, and I think a lot of people dig that, that hands-on kind of treatment.”
It’s easy to take for granted that Pete is among the staff you regularly see working in the restaurant. Same goes for seeing Will Evans at Deep Vellum, Liz and Doug Davis at Murray Street Coffee Shop, Art Harvey at Westlake Brewing Company, and other owners of Deep Ellum businesses. That presence makes a difference, and we should never take it for granted. These kinds of businesses are what make both the neighborhood and city so great.
And for Pete, there’s no plan to change the establishment at the corner of Commerce and South Crowdus Street.
“Thirty-two years, same spot, I say it all the time. When is it time to say, “Hey, man, maybe it’s time to hang it up?’ But I don’t feel like hanging it up,” he says. “I’ll go until they don’t want me there anymore, but I think everybody kind of likes it.”
