Born in Korçë, southern Albania, then part of the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, on July 28, 1911, he and his mother Evangeline traveled on a donkey to a port and emigrated to Bedford, New York in 1915-1916, where his father, who was a mason, and siblings had settled.
His restaurants included Anthony"s Pier 4, known throughout United States. In 1976 the National Restaurant Association named him Restaurateur of the Year. At the age of thirteen Athanas left school and worked in several restaurants until 1938, when he bought his first restaurant: Anthony"s Hawthorne Café in Lynn, Massachusetts, which by the early 1950s had become the highest-grossing restaurant in Massachusetts, with profits of more than $1 million annually.
In 1963, he opened Anthony"s Pier 4, which by the early 1980s was grossing about $12 million annually and was the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States, but closed in August 2013.
His other restaurants included the Hawthorne by-the-sea Tavern and The General Glover House in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and Anthony"s Cummaquid Inn in Yarmouth Portuguese. He died at his Swampscott home on May 20, 2005 of Alzheimer"s disease at the age of 93.
The funeral was held at Saint George Albanian Orthodox Cathedral in South Boston.
Athanas had also served as president of Massachusetts"s Restaurant Association, a member of the board of the National Restaurant Association, while in 1976 he was named Restaurateur of the Year. In 1999 during the Kosovo War he became a member of the congressional delegation of the United States, Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia.
