John Bitove, Sr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Bitove, Sr. (born 1928) is a Canadian businessman.
Born in Toronto, to Nicholas and Vana who were Macedonian immigrants, he built, operated and developed many restaurants across Canada, including the JB's Big Boy Family Restaurants. In 1982 one of his companies obtained all of the food and beverage catering at Toronto's (Pearson) International Airport. In 1987 he obtained the catering rights to Toronto's SkyDome, now Rogers Centre and in 1989, he merged his existing companies to form the Bitove Corporation, at that time one of Canada's largest privately held foodservice companies. He is a director of several companies including Oppenheimer. Involved in many charitable activities, most notably as the founder of Canadian Macedonian Place a home for the aged people of Macedonian decent in Canada as well as Pro-Action, a partnership with the Metropolitan Toronto Police to fund programs in high-risk youth areas of Toronto.
In 1989, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
He married Dotsa and has five children, Vonna, Tom, Nick, John Jr. and Jordan.
