No more six packs to go at Evangelo's Cocktail Lounge.

Nick Klonis, owner of the nearly 40-year-old watering hole at 200 W. San Francisco St., is moving his full-service liquor license to the new Sunflower Market at 3201 Zafarano Dr.

Klonis has another liquor-by-the-drink license to keep Evangelo's in business.

"We're not going anywhere," he said.

Klonis said he acquired the "full dispensers" license, allowing both package sales and liquor by the drink, in 1996 for the Mediterranean Cafe at 229 Galisteo St.

After closing the cafe in 2006, he moved that license up the street to Evangelo's, and leased its more limited "interlocal dispensers" license to a bar in Albuquerque.

Klonis said he occasionally sold a six pack of beer or bottle of wine out of Evangelo's, but "I didn't want to really advertise it because, you know, the DWI laws and all that kind of thing — people getting six packs and getting in cars, I didn't want to bother with that."

The Santa Fe City Council on Wednesday approved Klonis' request to move the license to the Sunflower Market that opened recently on the south end of Santa Fe. The grocery chain already has a store in the old Albertsons space in DeVargas Center.

Parts of the new movie Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal, were filmed in Evangelo's, which celebrates its 40th year next Thursday.

Klonis' father, Evangelo Klonis, first opened a restaurant and bar on the Santa Fe Plaza called the Mayflower Cafe in 1936 after immigrating illegally from Greece.

At the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He became a bit of a celebrity after Life Magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith snapped him smoking a cigarette on Normandy Beach in 1944 — a photograph that became an iconic image of the American soldier. Nick Klonis said an original print recently sold in San Francisco for $85,000.

After the war, Evangelo Klonis returned to his native Greece for a decade, then came back to Santa Fe to open Evangelo's on Feb. 18, 1969. He died on Feb. 18, 1989.

Nick Klonis said leasing the liquor license — which can sell for up to $500,000 in metropolitan areas — is part of a downsizing that should give him the time and money to work on a movie about his father's life.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.