John V. Voudouris, who worked with his uncle in the family’s landmark downtown Toledo corner restaurant, died Sunday in Ebeid Hospice Residence, Sylvania, on Sunday, the 60th anniversary of his arrival in the United States from his native Greece. He was 90.

He had sepsis, his daughter, Christina, said.

Ted’s Hamburger Shop officially closed in 2000 after a vehicle crashed into the familiar glazed-brick building at Monroe and Erie streets. His son, Ted, was running the restaurant, and Mr. Voudouris had been slowing down. A lull downtown meant customers weren’t stopping by as they once did.

Mr. Voudouris still owned the parking lot around the shop and held out hope for a downtown resurgence.

“In the years we would drive by, he would get emotional,” his son said. “He was trying to encourage me to reopen. He spent the most productive years of his life there.”

In the early years, the restaurant operated around the clock. Later it opened before dawn to feed the produce workers and farmers who came to the Warehouse District. He and his wife, Elizabeth, served breakfast to Ohio Bell employees and lunch to the downtown work force. The menu featured hamburgers, but also the daily special, which could be roast beef or meat loaf or Greek chicken or goulash.

“My parents would feed homeless people. I grew up thinking that’s something everybody did,” his daughter said. “Everybody knew each other. It was a family atmosphere.”

His uncle Ted Voudouris came to the United States at 17 and lived in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Fremont, Ohio, before Toledo. His first restaurant in 1930, which was closer to the Ohio Bell building on Erie, had only eight stools. He opened the corner hamburger shop later in the decade. He was unmarried and didn’t have children, and in the 1950s asked a brother to send his eldest son, John, to Toledo to help.

John forwarded money home to family in Greece, as his uncle had through the years.

“He was a loyal, dedicated person,” his son said. “There were other opportunities in the U.S. that he could have done, but because of his loyalty and the way he was brought up, he stayed for my great-uncle. He stayed loyal to downtown in a period when businesses were leaving downtown.”

His daughter said: “He was proud to be a citizen. The United States of America was the land of opportunity, and he was an example of that.”

His uncle, 91, died Feb. 5, 1980.

Mr. Voudouris was born Aug. 10, 1924, to Christina and Basilios Voudouris in Psari, Greece. He and his wife, Elizabeth, who is of Greek descent and grew up in France, met on the steps on Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral and started dating as they took English classes at Scott High School.

Years later, he built a house in his home village, and he and his wife visited annually for 12 years, their daughter said. A fig tree and grapevine were the touches of home he added to his Toledo garden.

He was a member of Holy Trinity and of American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association.

Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth, whom he married Aug. 25, 1957; son, Ted; daughter, Christina Petousis, and two grandsons.

Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m. Thursday in the Ansberg-West Home, with Trisagion prayers at 7 p.m. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

The family suggests tributes to Holy Trinity.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published May 20, 2015, 4:00 a.m.