'Pay or it will be worse': how the mafia terrorized a restaurant in New York, but the owner defeated the gangsters

When Stratis Morfogen opened his first Manhattan diner in the 1990s, he had no plans to one day tell team member John Gotti Jr. “Go to hell.” But for the Golden Greek, fighting the mafia has become a way of life. Now the owner of the Brooklyn Chop House in lower Manhattan is naming names in his new book, Be a Destroyer: Street Lessons for Entrepreneurs - From Mafia to Mandates, due out Tuesday. New York Post.

Morphogen opened a diner in Gotham City on the Upper East Side in 1993. Shortly thereafter, the mafia made its presence known.

“I had a head of promotion, his name was Noel Ashman. One evening Noel came in with a black eye, I asked, "What's going on?" Morfogen said in an interview.

“Some gangster said we have to pay them every month. Otherwise, they will constantly beat us, - Morfogen recalls his words. "Ashman pointed out a few names to me and I knew they were the Gambino guys."

Wise among wise men

Morfogen was not naive. He grew up on Long Island in the 1970s. His family owned the Howard Beach restaurant, which was frequented by mafia don Carlo Gambino. Gambino slipped $6 bills to impatient 20-year-old Morfogen and asked him about school.

After he opened his own establishment, Morfogen was often visited by Ralph Coppola of the Genovese crime family and Bobby "Bucky" Carbone.

Coppola became so close to him that he called Morfogen "nephew", and Carbone entertained him with stories. One night, Carbone even told him the story of the first person he killed. It was in a bar during a failed debt collection.

But Gotti Jr.'s team was different.

On the subject: Gangs of New York: how it really was

Gambino died on Long Island in 1976. And John Gotti ended up behind bars thanks to the testimony of Sammy “Bull” Gravano. In his absence, his son, Gotti Jr., bullied restaurateurs in the 1990s.

“John Gotti Jr. and his team is what they lived on. They turned every restaurant upside down from the Upper East Side to Midtown,” Morfogen said.

Since he was new on the block, it was Morfogen's turn to fork out. At least that's what two of Gotti Jr.'s group thought.

“I asked, “What do you guys want?” Morfogen recalled. They told him, "We want $5000 a month, or we'll smash your windows every week."

Morfogen replied, "Let me give you a quick answer: go to hell."

Business care

Soon after, someone started spraying black paint on the diner's windows every night. Morfogen wiped them down every morning.

Coppola noticed this was happening and told Morfogen to sit still.

Two days later, Morfogen received a phone call from one of Coppola's guys asking him to come to the now-defunct Ferrier Bistro at 22:00 pm.

“When I got there, Ralph was there with Bucky and all the Gambino capos were in the back. So I sat down with Ralph, Bobby, and the five heads of the Gambino family,” he said.

“Ralph was like, ‘Listen, this guy is with us, and you tell Gotti Jr. to back off. And if he does not back down, the situation will escalate. And I just got dizzy. The guys turned around and said, 'Hey, we like this guy, he's a good guy. Don't worry, we'll talk to the younger one."

It's just how Morfogen ended up under the protection of the Genovese guys. Carbone even plunged an ice pick into the thigh of an employee who stole $30 from the diner. He said they never asked for anything in return: “It was a true friendship,” Morfogen said.

Our friend and new enemy

After the success of Gotham City, Morfogen opened a club called Rouge with Coppola's tacit support.

Everything was fantastic. The club quickly rose to fame when New York Rangers captain Mark Messier brought in the Stanley Cup. One night, Morphogen accidentally chased Madonna and Tupac out the door because he didn't recognize them.

But it also caught the attention of West Coast mobsters who wanted to “buy” their way into the nightlife.

A Jewish gangster from Los Angeles once seated Morfogen in his own club and tried to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

“He takes out a pen and writes $10 on a napkin. And then he takes out a 9mm pistol, pulls out a bullet and puts it on the table.” He said to Morfogen: "Which will you choose: this or that?".

But Morfogen wasn't worried. "He didn't know that the most powerful people in the world were already protecting me."

Morfogen immediately referred the matter to Coppola and Carbona. They couldn't stop laughing.

“One Saturday night I walk into a club at XNUMX am and Coppola, Carbone and a gangster from Los Angeles are sitting in the VIP room drinking champagne.”

Morfogen was not amused.

Morphogen received the message. “As I was leaving, I heard Ralph say, “Let's get down to business. I heard your offer, and here is my counteroffer,” and he took a 60-pound candelabra and hit him on the head. Then Bucky ran up to me to drag me out of the nightclub and put me in a taxi while this fight was going on.

“When I arrived at the Rouge nightclub the next day, there was no blood on the floor, no blood on the walls. But I noticed that the carpet in the living room was gone.”

Come out clean

Such unquestioning loyalty has been shown to Morfogen for years to come. He knew that Coppola would always have his back. That's why he was shocked when he didn't show up at his wedding in 1998.

“I noticed two empty chairs at my wedding. Ralph and his wife never showed up. I was amazed by this. Ralph really was like an uncle to me. And I couldn't go a week without talking to him,” said Morfogen.

“That night, Bucky came up to me and said, ‘Ralph is gone. I asked: "What do you mean?". He said, “Ralph is gone. Ask no more.”

Years later, Morfogen was informed that Coppola had gone to a meeting in Harlem and never left the house. That's all he knows, even now.

The disappearance of Coppola shocked him. When his silent partner left, he took it as a sign. “I really didn’t want to be in it anymore,” he said of mafia life.

“In 2005, I really experienced difficulties - I got divorced, I lost my old business. And none of these guys called me to see if I needed anything. Ralph would call me every day,” he said.

But after a few years and business ventures, in 2006, the mafia again knocked on the door through their partner from Genovese.

The employee came on behalf of two capos who wanted to receive an envelope from Morfogen, who was just getting on his feet.

The answer was the same one he gave to Gotti's team a few years ago when he first started: "Tell them to go to hell," Morfogen said.

“I said, 'Don't turn me into a rat. I'm done with you guys." And they never came back and didn't bother me."