Go Greek opens in Garden City
Gyros spin at Go Greek, a new restaurant in Garden City. Credit: Newsday / Erica Marcus
Looks like we have a full-fledged gyro trend on our hands. Go Greek in Garden City is the third restaurant to open in the last three weeks that serves hand-stacked, sliced-meat gyro. Unlike The Friendly Greek in Seaford and Pita Station in Manhasset, however, Go Greek has not bent to public demand by also serving the standard American version, what owner Tom Matheos calls “the processed cone of meat.”
Matheos grew up in his parents’ restaurant, the Olympic Diner in Deer Park, but he left the fold to work at Chipotle. Over the course of his years at the chain (where he became a manager), he saw that it was possible to run a successful restaurant that had no freezer or microwave and that relied on freshly prepared foods. In Go Greek, he plans to apply those lessons to Greek cuisine.
“I’ve visited Greece many times as a kid and as an adult,” he said. “I don’t feel like many fast-casual Greek restaurants are representing that cooking the right way. I want to set a new standard.”
In addition to house-made chicken and pork gyros (in a pita or over rice, $9), Go Greek offers spanakopita and tiropita (spinach and meat pies, $6), four salads ($9), including one made with barley and grilled vegetables and another, the dakos, in which tomatoes, onion, feta and olives sit atop and soak into a dried barley rusk — a sort of Hellenic panzanella. Greek yogurt is from West Babylon’s own Nounós Creamery, fries are hand cut, extra-virgin olive oil is from Sparta, and the beer is from Athens, Santorini, Cyprus and Thessalonika.
Go Greek is at 180 Seventh St., Garden City; 516-746-2222, gofreshgreek.com
