The teenage skateboarders were just about to leave the courtyard at the Ronald Reagan Building on a lazy afternoon in August when a man called to them.

"I go: 'Hey, kids, don't leave yet, you're going to see a big surprise,' " Tom Papadopoulos recalled. The president and founder of Papadopoulos Properties had landed one of his most high-profile clients, Michael Jordan. The NBA star had just come out of retirement to play for the Washington Wizards, and he wanted to open a restaurant in DC. . while he was in town. He was going to tour the former Palomino Euro-Bistro space, which he ultimately chose for the new establishment, but that was not yet public knowledge.

The kids decided to wait - and were rewarded for doing so.

"Five minutes later, two black Range Rovers pull up, Jordan gets out, and these kids look at me and go: 'Mister, you were not lying!' Papadopoulos recalled.

That's just one of the many moments Papadopoulos cherishes looking back over the past four decades. As a troublemaker and class clown in his younger days, the veteran restaurant broker and D.C. native knew he wasn't cut out for a 9-to-5 job. He figured his Greek heritage gave him a leg up, since most of the restaurants and cafes in town were run by Greeks. Through a friend of his father's, he got a job working for one of D.C's most connected restaurant brokers at the time, Al Stern.

"It sounded interesting to me, and obviously, being Greek, and knowing a lot of Greeks were in the restaurant business, I thought I'd have a good head start if I went to work for this guy," Papadopoulos said. "It turned out to be a pretty good decision."

After five years under Stern's wings, he set out in 1984 to form his own firm at 1730 K St. NW, just across the street from his mentor's. And over the next 40 years, he and Papadopoulos Properties helped to elevate D.C.'s restaurant industry into one of the most dynamic food towns in the country.

He drew new groups into the region, including Outback Steakhouse, which chose D.C. as its first expansion market, and The Palm, which picked DC. . for its first restaurant outside of New York. There were plenty of celebrity chefs along the way, from Daniel Boulud and David Chang to Bobby Flay. And the firm's still going strong, with a mix of local and national players, from homegrown Seven Reasons Group to New York-based Dos Toros.

The Washington Business Journal caught up with Papadopoulos to get his thoughts on how the industry's evolved over the years, starting with what whet his appetite for the restaurant business in the first place.

What advice did Stern offer as you were starting out? He had two pieces of advice. One was: "Sit in the corner, keep your mouth shut, and pick up the check." And all the documents that he prepared were on one page. He would say: "One page they sign the agreement. Two pages, they take to their lawyer." And that was mostly for business sales, but that was his advice.

Why did you decide to strike out on your on? He was getting up in years, and in my mind, I wanted to expand what I do from the business of restaurant sales to more of the leasing and commercial sales and stuff like that. So I went out on my own, with an older guy who used to work part-time for Al Stern, and he stayed with me.

What was it like working with Michael Jordan? The whole process was great because it had to be kept quiet until we came out. The problem is we did that deal right before 9/11. They were getting ready to announce it that day, and they had to put the cap on it for, probably, a month before they let the cat out of the bag.

What was your first deal? It was not a restaurant. My first deal was a dry cleaner on Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast D.C., and I made $3,500 on that deal, and I thought I was rich.

What would you say was your most famous deal, if not Jordan? In D.C., the "Cafe Milano" in its day was a restaurant by the White House called Sans Souci, and if you Google it, you'll find out everybody in town who was anybody had lunch and dinner at that restaurant, from politicians, to reporters, to celebrities. That was the place. There's a famous story that Mick Jagger was in town, didn't have a reservation, and they wouldn't let him in.

And your role in it? The owner wanted to retire at the time, it was probably 1980, and we sold the restaurant for him. And that was the most famous in DC. A French restaurant, on 17th Street by the White House. It's now, believe it or not, a McDonald's. That was the McDonald's that, if you remember, back in the day, when Bill Clinton would go jogging around the White House and he would stop at McDonald's to pick up a cheeseburger - that's that McDonald's.

So how did you score the listing? When you're dealing with selling restaurants, for the most part, it's very confidential. You can't put it out there that ABC restaurant's for sale because, when it gets out there, and people start walking in and going, "Hey, I want to buy this place," and this and that, you lose employees, and it's just not a good scenario. So everything's confidential.

We were well known for knowing all the restaurant people in town, so they came to us, and we approach everybody on a confidential basis, and we usually made people sign off on a nondisclosure. That's how we worked back in those days.

What was it like marketing those spaces at that point in D.C.'s evolution? Back in those days, the restaurant world was Connecticut Avenue and K Street, you know, downtown D.C., what they call the Golden Triangle today, and Georgetown. That was the restaurant world, and everybody was local. 

How did you manage to compete as the larger brokerages looked to get into the action? There were retail brokers, but nobody was focused on restaurants. And then, there came a point, to be honest with you, where people saw what I was doing, and that I was involved in a lot of restaurants, and they struck a point where they said, "Hey, that sounds interesting. Let's focus on restaurants too," because there was a point where restaurants, even today, are still the most active retail tenants.

What's been the secret to your success? I knew everybody. I mean, growing up in D.C., it was a small town. Everybody knew everybody. There's nine of us in the office, and you're only as good as the team, and the partners that surround you, you know what I mean? I didn't do it by myself. I started of by myself, but I couldn't be in the position I am today if I wasn't surrounded by great, great partners. 

How do you handle it when a restaurant you put into a place closes? I don't fall in love with the deal. Even landlords that we don't represent may call me and ask my opinion about a tenant or a restaurant operator, what I think about it, what I think about him or her, and if it's the right operator for my space, I'll tell them.

What's next for you, and is retirement in the cards? I don't plan on retiring any time soon because I'm having a lot of fun. Restaurant operators and chefs are some of the most unique personalities and industries you can deal with, so it's a lot of fun. And the goal is to keep doing things, and bringing in unique talent and operators to town, and helping guys that want to expand their concepts. That's a big part of what we did back in the day and still do today.

What's something you're most proud of having accomplished? I just think it's cool, when I look around at these projects, or we drive by these projects, and say, "Hey, we put eight, or 10 or 12 deals in that shopping center." Like our logo says on the website - transforming neighborhoods. That's what we do. That's what I like about it. Whether it's the Seven Reasons guys, who, now we're doing their fifth or sixth restaurant, or even someone like Bethesda Bagels, and we've done a half-dozen deals with, or SeoulSpice, local guys, all that kind of stuff makes it fun. But like I said, none of this was done on my own; it's all about my team.

The details
Tom Papadopoulos, principal and principal broker, Papadopoulos Properties
• Age: 67
• Residence: Potomac
• Education: Bachelor's in economics, University of Maryland
• Family: Wife, Koula; two sons, Nick and Leo
• First job: Woodward &Lothrop had a store in Chevy Chase, and my first job was
working in the toy department there.

Papadopoulos Properties

• Location: 1420b 21st St. NW
• Established: 1984
• Employees: 9
• About: AD.C.-based restaurant and retail brokerage that firm has served over 800
clients across over 3,000 deals for 40 years.

You can find the original article by Daniel J. Sernovitz – Senior Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal by clicking HERE.