“I was passing by and I spotted this poor guy sweating and grunting, hauling big boxes from one side of the street to the other, so I stopped and asked if he needed a hand,” said Steven Been, who, at the time, had recently settled in Sissi from his native Holland. “By the time we finished with the crates we were friends…and business partners.”

The guy who was labouring over the boxes when Steven happened by was Periandros Faitos, a native of Neapolis and a long-time Sissi resident and super market owner. At the time of their chance meeting, Paris was moving from one location to a larger one on Sissi’s main street.

“When he offered to help, I thought: “what a nice guy,” Periandros recalled. “Later, when we started talking, he said he was looking to get into business, so we discussed a partnership. We even had a common bond since my wife, Ank, is Dutch.”

Originally, when Steven first came to Crete from Rotterdam, where he owned a rather large trucking firm, he wasn’t thinking of the food business.

“My first idea was to rent out Harley motorcycles,” Steven said. “Since I’ve been riding Harleys for many years, this was something I knew quite a bit about. But, I soon realized it just wouldn’t work here.”

The first year as a joint venture with the Supermarket Sissi, which featured many typical tourist products like Cretan honeys and spices, wasn’t overly successful.

“It worked okay, but the bottom line really wasn’t enough for two households, after all the bills were paid, IKA, and all,” Steven said. “So, we agreed to make some changes, and last year we added a few Dutch products, which we bought from local wholesalers, to test the market.”