San Diego Reader

Local Rotary Club member Mrs. Homer Peabody talks steak thickness with food authority George Mardikian (1958). As a teen, Armenian-born Mardikian escaped from a Turkish prison camp and made his way to the U.S. He started his restaurant career as a dishwasher in a San Francisco speakeasy and eventually opened the Omar Khayyam restaurant in Fresno.

Mardikian would likely prefer to be remembered as a man who improved food for U.S. soldiers during the Korean War. For his effort he was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

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