Panagiotis Hatzilias was born on March 1st 1971 in New York City to Anna & Christos Hatzilias. His father migrated from Greece to America and worked in the Diamond district. Anna from Slovakia, met Chris at a polka dance in New York City. They lived in New York for a bit, but Chris being from Greece wanted to live in warmer temperatures. He saw an ad for a jewelry company in St. Petersburg, FL and the family moved to sunny Florida. After working at the small jeweler for just a couple years, Chris decided to make a go of it himself, and started a jewelry repair shop with two other partners in the early 70s.
In those early days, Mr. Hatzilias and his business partners worked out of a second-floor office space. Without a store front, they worked repairing jewelry for other stores in the area. Even at the beginning, the business has always been a family affair for the Hatzilias. Pete, their oldest son and the current owner of Century Jewelers, remembers tagging along when he was still just a toddler, as his father delivered the newly repaired jewelry.
Even as the store flourished, the business of running it remained a family endeavor. Pete remembers helping out in the store when he was as young as six years old, sweeping and organizing the best a six-year-old can. As he grew, Pete continued to help his parents, enjoying spending afternoons after school and summer breaks learning the business.
Pete received a Bachelor of Science from the College of Business Administration at University of South Florida. After college Pete worked in the tech industry for awhile taking a break from the jewelry business. Working at Verizon for awhile doing techie stuff.
When Christos passed away in March 2019, Pete stepped up, taking over the business for his father. With his mother’s help running the store front, Pete undertook a store-wide renovation. The store’s history was rediscovered through this process. When he met Tara, she helped bring in new inventory, a brand new storefront with fun new items from unique purses to pearls, gold,silver and holiday accessories. Although the family has always prided themselves for the top-quality work they do by hand, Pete’s vision for the store continues to be innovative and
place the customer first. Tara assisted in new marketing strategies and fun parties to rebrand the store. They even commissioned a 44 foot octopus mural on the side of their building by Alyssa Marie Gallery. The first one in the South Pasadena community. It took the art community by storm and landed them a TV segment on Fox News.
Pete has two sons, C.J. & Alex. C.J. is the oldest and loves cars and working with his hands doing mechanical stuff with automobiles. He will be 21 in October 2022. Alex just graduated high school and will be attending college and taking classes for a degree in engineering.
He has two younger brothers, George and Karol. George lives with his family and amazing three kids in Georgia. Karol lives with his wife and adorable little daughter in Seattle.
Pete’s hobbies include metal detecting. He loves spending his free time on the beach looking for lost treasures. Sometimes he finds wedding rings, gold bands or even iPhones sunk 12 feet deep into the bottom of the ocean. Lots of times its rusty fish hooks and trash he trows away. But if you ever loose something on the beach, you can call him or anyone else who is part of a metal detecting club and they will come out and help you locate it. He just recently found a woman’s diamond ring and a new 13 generation iPhone that still worked after a kid lost it in the water! But that’s just the kindness of Pete’s big heart at work, always helping people. He would love to go to Ireland or Scotland and dig up some old coins in the vast grasslands over there someday.
