Niktario Nikitaras remembers fighting with his brothers Nick and Marco over whose turn it was to clean down and fill the fridges at their parents’ shop in Bellerive at weekends.

Now he divides his time between the Hill Street and Lenah Valley stores, specialising in fruit and vegetables, but like his older brothers, Niktario has had a little time away from retailing – he trained as a panel beater and spray painter and worked in that field for seven years. (Marco began his working life as a bricklayer and Nick worked as a lawyer and airline executive).

Niktario met Georgina Chrisoulakis at a cousin’s party and soon they married. When her father Terry offered him the lease of Terry’s Food Store at Springfield, he grabbed the opportunity and the young couple were back behind the counter.

The lease on Terry’s was running out just as the couple’s first child was about to be born (Nikita now five, and since joined by Ellie, two), and so an invitation from Marco to join him at the Hill Street shop was accepted with alacrity.

There he became involved in fruit and vegetables, and remembers that the “words that most often came out of your mouth were ‘excuse me, excuse me’,” as he worked his way among customers to load the shelves in the small space. He says the difference between the old Hill Street store and the current, enlarged space is that then you could load half a case of capsicums on to the shelves, whereas now you can put two cases up at a time. The luxury of space is even more marked at Lenah Valley/Augusta Food Store, where the aisles are wider.

Niktario begins most days at 5am at Hill Street Grocer (4am on weekends) where he helps George Krambousanos load the vegetable and fruit display, before whipping off to Lenah Valley to work until late afternoon. Meanwhile, Georgina is working from 9am until the late evening. Fortunately, both of them have Sunday and Monday as their days off together.

Niktario says he sometimes goes out for a drink with the “boys from fruit and veg”, “but I pay for it in the morning”. “But it’s a happy environment to work in, you meet lots of people,” says Niktario. And in their time off together he and Georgina enjoy living in their new home in Tranmere with their son and daughter.

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