Pete Kapakos, 93; Former Owner of New Canaan Pizza

From the Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home.

Pete (Panagiotis) Dimitri Kapakos, a resident of Mooresville, NC, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family on Saturday, June 21, 2014 at Levine and Dickson Hospice in North Carolina. He was 93.

He was born on August 13, 1920 in Sparta, Greece to the late Dimitri Kapakos and Aggeliki Kournoutou.

After living in Greece in his younger years, he immigrated to the US in his mid-twenties. Lake Charles, LA and Houston, TX were two of the first places he resided, had some of the best memories and stories to tell of his years there.
He married his first wife, Constantina in Greece and moved to Connecticut where he spent the majority of his life. After two children and losing the third, he lost his wife to cancer. He remarried an exceptional woman, Aphrodite, who raised his two children as if they were her own. Sadly, in 1988, she also died of cancer. He was always a man of getting up after falling down. His faith kept him strong. Some years later after the children were grown, he remarried his third and last wife, Ifigenia, a sweet and gentle soul spending some of his later years with her in Greece. 

As a hardworking man, he was committed to making the best for his family. Pete and his wife, Aphrodite were proprietors of New Canaan Pizza from 1974 to 1981. In retirement, he devoted his time and passion to gardening and working the earth. He was a very wise man and experience taught him many lessons in life. He remembered all the poems and the songs he learned as a child and young adult, and being the happy individual that he was, he did not hesitate to recite and sing them on a daily basis. 

Pete is survived by his devoted children, James Kapakos and his wife Christine of Charlotte, NC, Joanne Teis and her husband Theodore of Mooresville, NC, five loving grandchildren, Constantina Tzimopoulos, Peter Kapakos, Chris Teis, William Kapakos and Peter Teis and a sister Stavroula Mihaelides of Greece. Also surviving are several nieces and nephews.

Besides his parents, Pete was predeceased by his three wives, Constantina , Aphrodite and Ifigenia Kapakos, four siblings, Eleni Aposporos, George, Chris and Ourania Kapakos.

Calling hours for family and friends will be at The Church of the Archangels, 1527 Bedford St., Stamford, on Friday, June 27, from 9 to 11 a.m. with a Funeral Service following at 11 a.m. with Rev. Dr. Harry Pappas officiating. Interment will follow at Fairfield Memorial Park, Oaklawn Avenue, Stamford.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Hospice of Iredell County or the building fund of St. Luke's Greek Orthodox Church in Mooresville, NC.

The Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home & Crematory, 104 Myrtle Avenue, Stamford is honored to assist the Kapakos family with the arrangements.

To leave online condolences, please visit www.cognetta.com