People laud Nicky Demetrious as good businessman, friend

Nicky Demetrious played tennis, rode a bike into the hinterlands bald headed, personified good health and was one of the most well-known people in Darlington.

He couldn’t overcome a second bout with cancer, however, and died Sunday at age 60.

Demetrious’ late father, Chris “Gus” Demetrious, launched the Carolina Lunch in Darlington in the early 1930s in the rear of a tobacco warehouse. It was one of the town’s most popular eateries until the warehouse burned in the early 1990s. It then moved to the Dairy Bar, which Demetrious had opened in 1958, but closed in the 1970s.

Nicky held court daily in the Carolina Lunch/Dairy Bar. He arrived at 4 a.m. six days a week. It is listed in the telephone book as Carolina Lunch/Dairy Bar because he refused to let the Carolina Lunch name die.

“I’ve know Nicky all my life,” said former Darlington Mayor Ronnie Ward, chairman of the McLeod Health board of trustees. “He, my wife, Susan, and I were very good friends. He was as good a friend as anybody would ever want to have.

“Nicky was a very private person who didn’t want people to know his business. We’ve shared a lot of wonderful stories over the years of things that have happened while growing up in a great town. He was just a unique individual, a good friend and somebody that’s loved by everyone.”

WBTW TV13’s Cecil Chandler and Demetrious were in school together from the first grade through graduation from St. John’s High School in 1966.

Chandler remembers when Demetrious’ mother insisted he wear special shoes to elementary school.

“Nicky would wear the shoes out of his house over to the old Methodist Church Cemetery on Orange Street,” Chandler said. “That’s where he hid a pair of his regular shoes. He would put the regular shoes on and then switch when he came back, making his mom think he had worn the special shoes all day.

“Nicky and I used to do some crazy things,” Chandler said. “I had a 1957 Ford station wagon, and he had a 1956 Buick when we first started driving. I would (be) riding along, and the next thing I knew, somebody would run into the back of me. It was Nicky.”

Chandler parked his car in the back of the Dairy Bar one time. When he came back, it was gone. He thought it had been stolen.

“Nicky finally told me he pushed it down the hill and across the street,” Chandler said. “He pushed it into a garage at the police station and closed the door. He also stole two license tags off my car before I found out who was doing it. Nicky was something else.”

Florence attorney Malloy McEachin frequently played tennis with Demetrious.

“Nicky was a great fellow,” he said. “I always enjoyed seeing him. He was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever known. He was a gentleman and genuinely interested in people. He was a warm, outgoing fellow.”

“Nicky always walked in the back door when he came here to eat,” Joey Saleeby, owner of Joe’s Grill, said. “I would always have something special that I save at lunchtime for him. He went wild over chickenbog and backbone and rice for a long time.”

Demetrious also was an expert at making change at the Dairy Bar and Joe’s.

“Nicky was one of two people in the 57-year-history of Joe’s Grill who could make his own change from the cash register,” Saleeby said. “He would come in and eat, then go to the register, open it and pay for his meal. You could be talking to him one minute, turn around to see who came in the door, and the next thing you knew, he was gone.”

“Nicky always got on me and James Buie because he wanted to be from the West End of town,” Tommy Britt said. “Buie told me the other night we need to make up an honorary membership for him.

“The day before he died, he was in and out of sleep. He woke up one time while I was in there and said he was trying to think of a fourth person to play a set of tennis with.”

Edwin Dargan is another longtime tennis partner.

“Nicky was kind of our organizer who got up all the matches and lined up things,” Dargan said. “We went out a lot together to the Carolina Cup and the Colonial Cup. He had a parking place over there.”