WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – In 1977, Jimbo Patsalos, his wife, Anna, and their son, Nick, moved to Wilmington. What brought them south wasn’t a job opportunity or a business plan. It was a summer vacation and a fateful decision made in a single moment.
Jimbo had owned two restaurants in New York: one similar to what would become Jimbo’s Breakfast and Lunch House in Wilmington, and another more upscale eatery. But during that summer visit in 1977, while reconnecting with friends, the family’s perspective changed.
“We were very close friends for years, and as soon as we drove into town, my husband, I, and my son—we all looked at each other and said, ‘This is it,’” Anna recalls…