It’s opening day for Denis and Spiros Bastas, the father-and-son duo behind the authentic Greek restaurant, Suvlaki Stix.
The Bastas family moved from York Region to start their Orillia restaurant, but originally, they are from Greece.
“I was born in Athens, Greece,” Spiros said, noting he moved to Canada in 1965 at 17 years old. “This is an authentic restaurant. When you go to Greece, this is what you expect to see.”
The family’s ties to Orillia go back more than 30 years; they looked after annual cookouts for local marinas.
“We’ve been coming here for a long time,” Denis said.
“We thought that this city needs a restaurant that does authentic Greek,” Spiros added.
Denis says seeing the popularity and demand for the annual cookouts gave him the idea to go all in on opening a restaurant. On the menu is freshly made food that has been carefully crafted by the Bastas family and their Greek chef, Vivian.
“Everything is made in house,” Denis said. “It’s a labour of love. It’s stressful, but we do it.”
Denis has been in the restaurant industry for 15 years. For his father, it’s been 35 years. Their experience in the industry separates them from the competition, Spiros says.
“Our whole menu is quality food,” he said. “Most restaurants are working with frozen products, but everything we serve here is homemade.”
Denis says they put in the time and effort to make sure every customer walks away satisfied.
“It’s designed for just about everybody,” he said. “We have some non-authentic Greek dishes to give a little bit of diversity to people who don’t have the palate for it.”
So far, the customer feedback has been positive, Spiros says.
“We had a lot of orders today through our website,” he said. “We didn’t expect that, but we love it.”
Suvlaki Stix is open daily in the Fittons West plaza at 425 West St. N. from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
