Since 1979, the Giannes family has been serving up Greek and Mediterranean specialties at their restaurant in the Terrell Mill-Powers Ferry area.
What’s been Kouzina Christos since 2012 at the revitalized Terrell Mill Village Shopping Center first opened next door, at Terrell Mill Junction, at a time when that East Cobb community was undergoing a transition.
Christos Restaurant, as it was first called, later moved up the road a bit, at the Delk Spectrum Shopping Center at the corner of Powers Ferry, and continued to persist and thrive.
As other independent, mom-and-pop and chain restaurants came and left the area, Christos became a fixture. It seemed able to adapt to changing demographics and tastes in a busy commercial area with more competition from the national casual restaurant brands.
In three different locations, the Christos menu, and the familiar faces, have stayed essentially the same. In my many visits there, I thought of it as comfort food with a little extra spice.
But on Saturday, the long-standing eatery will be serving its final gyros, salads, sandwiches, pizzas and spanakopitas.
Owner Christos Giannes announced the restaurant’s closing on Monday, as first reported by ToNeTo.
The calamitous impact of COVID-19 closures was just too much, and Giannes said in a social media message he’s no longer working with his landlord “over options to remain operational.”
As far as restaurants go, anything over even 10 years can seem like an eternity, even in the pre-COVID-19 world.
But more than four decades? It’s stunning, really, a testament to a determined Greek immigrant family that loved serving up affordable, family-style meals to a loyal East Cobb community of customers.
Among them was my mother, who came to the original Christos in the early 1980s for lunch with co-workers from a nearby office park.
I was in college during those years, and after I returned she and I would go there often. I don’t remember what she liked in particular, but I know what I did: A very generous and tasty Italian grinder.
Over the years, I have gone there on occasion, typically for that Italian grinder at lunch.
On Wednesday, I did so again, for the last time, and the familiar flavors of Genoa salami, pepperoni, capicola, tomatoes, lettuce and Duke’s mayonnaise on toasted bread brought back fond memories.
It was a bittersweet dining experience all the same, as I looked around and saw the beginnings of a packing-up.
Christos Giannes wasn’t there when I stopped in, but he’s been frank about the fate not only of his own restaurant but others like his during the long months of closures, partial reopening and government action over COVID-19.
He said on the restaurant’s Facebook page that Kouzina Christos was doing well before March, after some years of experimenting with an expanded menu to include Greek dinner delicacies, as well as the addition of an outdoor patio.
A proud champion of independent restaurants, he was critical of what he said is a “flaccid and shortsighted response from local, state and national sources for support to buttress businesses who’s loss will negatively affect business viability, employees, their families, the community, the schools is laughable. The losses to the foundation, the fabric that buttress our communities will be felt for many years.”
This is one of the greatest fears of business closures due to COVID-19, especially in the restaurant and retail sectors, and the horrible reality is unfolding before us everywhere.
Within eyeshot of Kouzina Christos is a brand new Panera Bread in the MarketPlace Terrell Mill development underway, and around the corner on Powers Ferry is a Jimmy John’s.
They’re known for their sandwiches, but they don’t have anything like my Italian grinder, much less the gyros and falafels of Christos.
I’m not knocking the chains; they’ve been oh-so-convenient with drive-through service and I’m as guilty as anyone of pulling in when the sit-down places were closed.
And that’s been just the problem.
“Chains are happy to see the mass failure of independents, expanding the labor pool, increasing competition and increasing downward pressure on hourly wages,” Christos Giannes wrote. “Corporate greed and avarice…supporting the Chinese economy.”
He shares company with so many venerable dining and watering hole institutions, including Atlanta’s Manuel’s Tavern, where I had many a meal and adult beverage during my years at the AJC. Owner Brian Maloof, son of the famous barkeep and politico Manuel Maloof, doesn’t see how he can keep his doors open in Poncey-Highland beyond the end of the year.
That would end a 64-year run on land that is now owned by corporate real estate interests and is surrounded by pricey regentrification. Maloof has spurned acquisitions in the past from the likes of Hooter’s, and completely overhauled his freestanding building a few years ago.
Christos Giannes was becoming gradually pessimistic in the weeks and months over summer when he began discussing reduced rents for Kouzina Christos with his landlord.
In late August, he said “it’s quite probable this will be the final year of business in our present location. The continuing pandemic has made it almost impossible to maintain profitability.”
Another crippling factor is the surrounding office market, where many employees who can work from home have been doing so. That’s gutted the lunch business of places like Kouzina Christos that have always depended on it.
With the Terrell-Mill Powers Ferry area going through another transformation—with several mixed-use developments in the works yielding many new residential dwellings—the timing of Kouzina Christos’ closure is even more unfortunate.
For those of us who ate there somewhat regularly, it seemed like we’d be able to eat there forever.
The old-world feel of Kouzina Christos held up well over four decades, and it took something as devastating as a pandemic to close the doors.
I get many messages from readers asking about new restaurants that are opening—especially the new chain casual spots that are dotting East Cobb like never before.
What I’d like to ask my readers is to think of their favorite truly local restaurants these days and patronize them like never before. These are community gems that are teetering on the edge of extinction.
At the very least, many are trying to stave off a gradual death like Kouzina Christos, barely holding on amid continuing uncertainty and with no end in sight to health restrictions.
Kouzina Christos (1453 Terrell Mill Road) will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. through Saturday.
After that, Christos Giannes said “we will all take a long rest and start looking at other possible locations to build on our 40 years of history” including “options to re-imagine the next chapter of Kouzina Christos.”
I hope that chapter comes soon, and that the Italian grinder is on the menu.
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