Or at least that’s what two of Gotti Jr.’s “top honchos” thought. They would shake down every restaurant from the Upper East Side to Midtown,” Morfogen said.Īs the new kid on the block, it was Morfogen’s turn to pony up. John Gotti Jr.’s people demanded protection from Morfogen’s diner, he said. In his absence, his son, Gotti Jr., was running the show - and intimidating restaurateurs - in the 1990s. Gambino died on Long Island in 1976 and John Gotti was behind bars thanks to testimony from Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. It was at a bar, in a debt collection gone awry. One night, Carbone even told him the story of the first man he killed, Morfogen said. Underboss Coppola got so close that he called Morfogen “nephew,” and Carbone entertained him with tales from the other side. Gambino would slip the eager 6-year-old Morfogen $20 bills and ask him about school.Īfter he opened his own spot, Morfogen enjoyed frequent visits from the Genovese crime family’s Ralph Coppola and Bobby “Bucky” Carbone. He grew up on Long Island in the 1970s and his family had owned a Howard Beach restaurant where mob don Carlo Gambino was a regular. Morfogen wasn’t naive about the Cosa Nostra. Bettmann Archiveįormer Colombo family boss Victor Orena likely to die in jail after being denied compassionate release Gambino would slip him $20 bills while eating at his family’s restaurant. “ pointed out some names to me and I recognized that these are Gambino guys.” Wise in wiseguys Morfogen knew Carlo Gambino at an early age.
“Some gangster said we have to pay them every month or they’re going to continuously start beating us up,” Morfogen recalled him saying. “I had a head of promotions, his name was Noel Ashman … one night Noel comes in with a black eye, I said, ‘What’s going on?'” Morfogen told The Post in an exclusive interview. Soon after, the mob made their presence known. Morfogen opened Gotham City Diner on the Upper East Side in 1993. Now, the owner of Brooklyn Chop House in lower Manhattan is naming names in his new book, “Be a Disruptor: Streetwise Lessons for Entrepreneurs ― from the Mob to Mandates,” out Tuesday. When Stratis Morfogen opened his first Manhattan diner in the 1990s, he had no intention of one day telling a member of John Gotti Jr.’s crew to “go f–k themselves.”īut for “The Golden Greek” - a nickname Morfogen earned from his mob contacts for his money-making ways - standing up to the mafia became a way of life as an NYC-based restaurateur. Son didn’t put out mob hit on dad - it was the Bronx mafia underground lawyer claims as trial nears close Mobster’s son guilty of orchestrating dad’s McD’s murder goes pale, wife bursts into tears in courtroom scene Louis Gigante, Bronx priest and brother of mob boss, dead at 90 Sylvester Stallone on his mobster role in ‘Tulsa King’: ‘He’s not a savage’
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