Nick Garilas (left) and George Chulkas flank star employee Monica Guerrero in the The Clock's final days. The restaurant closed April 10 after serving the Duncan community and surrounding area for more than 30 years. Photo courtesy of The Clock Family Restaurant of Duncan.
At the end of the first full week in April, Duncan residents scurried to have a last meal or two at The Clock, a landmark restaurant that served the area for more than 30 years.
While patrons offered co-owners George Chulkas and Nick Garilas tons of hugs, memories, and well wishes, few or perhaps none realized that through all the years of comfort food, signature chili-cheese burgers, and lunch plates that made life a little more smiling, an invisible battle between success and failure had permeated the restaurant through thick and thin.
And even though Chulkas said he and Garilas would do it all again, the road to The Clock’s final, teary-eyed closing was not only fraught with precipitous business peril, but a dream often on the edge of evaporating.
“Nick is married to my first cousin, and we had worked together in other places before starting The Clock,” Chulkas explained. “At some point we said, ‘Why don’t we open this together?’ And we made a pact to finish 30 years.”
Starting from scratch, they bought a 2-acre site on Main Street, and built and furnished a 140-seat restaurant.
They knew the easiest part of their dream would be hiring people, preparing food, and serving customers.
Chulkas’ parents helped with the start-up, but a loan from the Small Business Administration carried payback terms of 10% plus prime, along with a 15-year construction loan, plus a loan on the restaurant equipment – “and Nick put up his home as collateral.”
“We put up everything we had to make this happen,” Chulkas said. “But we believed in ourselves.”
Opening day on Dec. 12, 1995, brought initial smiles, as seemingly everyone in and around Duncan turned up to try the new place.
Chulkas recalled, “It was a madhouse… But the teams assembled in the back and front were like a symphony. With all the stars aligned and in our favor.”
But one super day would not guarantee long-term success. Chulkas and Garilas spent the first six months trying to gain a toehold among the afternoon eating crowds. And close at hand behind the scenes lurked a looming spectre of creditors and what-ifs – kept tentatively at arms’ length by a constant, round-the-clock expenditure of energy.
“We would go to our homes, shower, and come right back – seven days a week, 18 hours a day…until we finally got a break by paying off the loan for the restaurant equipment,” Chulkas said. “I never felt like we wouldn’t make it. But I didn’t have a day off until we’d been open about a year.”
Eventually, The Clock did well enough to be closed on Sundays – Thanks partly to high school football.
“When Byrnes was a national powerhouse, we had serious crowds every Friday,” Chulkas said. “The drive-thru line was out of the parking lot and down Hwy. 290. And the last customer often wasn’t out until 30 minutes to an hour after we closed.”
And so it was, year after year, as the partners finally reached a milestone of sorts of only having to work 12-hour days – and the going was not always smooth.
“One time, I had to work the grill with a torn Achilles tendon, wearing a boot brace,” Chulkas said. “Another time, I got a serious burn when oil splashed on my right arm, and another time I cut off part of my index finger while slicing onions – It took 27 stitches to mend.”
And then, when they were in sight of their 25th year, the COVID pandemic hit –threatening to undo their dream as food supplies went from affordable double-digits to bank-breaking triple digits.
“And the quality went to nothing too,” Chulkas said. “We had to shop at Publix and Ingles for a while to keep going.”
But going they kept – until a plan to sell the restaurant paid off in December 2025 – almost 30 years to the day they opened.
“That’s when we officially began planning to close,” Chulkas said, adding that the last day on April 10 was as much of a madhouse as opening day…only more emotional for him, Garilas, and nearly every patron.
“Getting to know people from all walks of life who supported us – That’s my only sadness in ending all this,” Chulkas said. “I gave more than 30 years to The Clock and I’m so glad I did – All our leftover food will go to area food banks and shelters. Now I want to give 30 years to my family and whatever may come along next. And at the end, Nick and I were like, ‘We did it… We did it.”
