'Feed the community': It's all Greek this week at Akron Greek Festival

Community members will be able to get their Greek on Thursday through Saturday, when the Akron Greek Festival returns to Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church.

The church, located at 129 S. Union St. in Akron, will run its outdoor tent buffet line 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The inside buffet line will be open from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

In the large tent, which features taverna-style food, folks can feast on souvlaki (grilled chicken or pork), gyros, village salad, kalamaria, smelt, Village Fries with seasoning, tiropita (Greek cheese pies), spanokopita and lemon potatoes.

"It is a more Greek experience where you get the food from the shop and then you sit down and listen to Greek music," said Christina Barry, festival co-chair and chairwoman for the tent operations.

Inside the church, additional entrees will include lamb chops, lamb shank, chicken souvlaki or souzoukakia (Greek meatballs) with rice and green beans, pastitsio (Greek lasagna with bechamel), mousaka (eggplant casserole) and a choice of sides that includes, of course dolmathes (grape leaves).

Another specialty entree, plaki fish with rice and green beans, will be served Friday night only for $14.

If that's not enough to get your taste buds going, check out the pastries in the cafe, handmade by church volunteers. A sampler of five kinds of pastries sells for $14. Desserts sold by single pieces are baklava, kourambiethes (cookies covered with powdered sugar), galaktoboureko (Greek custard) and finikia (honey-dipped cookies). Also check out the koulourakia (buttery Greek Easter cookies), paximadia (Greek biscotti) and loukoumades (Greek donuts), sold in multiples, as well as the rice pudding.

On Friday, eight volunteers were baking 60 trays of baklava, for a total of 7,200 pieces of the pastry.

"They are back there with hot, fresh, gooey baklava," the Rev. Dean Kokanos said Friday of the volunteers.

In the kitchen, the women were pouring full pitchers of cold syrup on hot baklava fresh out of the ovens. With each pour, a satisfying sizzling could be heard when the cold liquid met the hot pastry.

"This is organized chaos," said Barb Papas, chairwoman for the baklava. "This takes many hands."

Each tray of baklava calls for 8 cups of the syrup, made with honey, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, orange, cloves and cinnamon sticks. Volunteers had boiled the syrup in an industrial-sized pan using 400 pounds of sugar to make the syrup for four different kinds of Greek pastries sold at the festival.

The volunteers shared some tricks to making great baklava: the pastry, made in June and frozen for baking Friday, were pre-cut with the help of trays with notched rims to mark the cuts. Also, each tray of the pastry is sprayed with a water bottle before baking to make sure the baklava doesn't unfurl, or flake, while baking.

Each pan of the baklava calls for 3 pounds of phyllo, 3 pounds of walnuts, 2 pounds of clarified butter and the 8 cups of syrup. Once the syrup is poured, it's best to wait a day for the pastry to soak it in before eating.

"Hallelujah! The last two trays," pastry chairwoman Shelly Partis said Friday as the final two baklava trays went into the oven.

Local Flavor:Niko’s Sandwich Board puts the deli in delicious

Entertainment

Akron Annunciation folk dancers will perform at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. daily in the tent and Dimitri also will perform outside. Inside, Aegean Odyssey will perform Greek music and Dimitri Kountis will play in the pastry room and cafe.

Online carryout orders available at Akron Greek Festival

The festival is offering online carryout orders, with ordering open now at www.akrongreekfest.com/order. For to-go orders, all dinner options will be available all day.

Orders must be placed by 8 a.m. the day of pick-up and must be pre-paid online. Those unable to order online can call 313 444-7204 to place their order.

Customers can select their pick-up date and time in 15-minute increments. Pick-up times are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

The entrance for the drive-through has changed this year. Enter from East Buchtel Avenue and follow signs and volunteer directions. Order confirmations must be presented, either printed or on cell phones.

Guests will pull into a numbered parking space and text 313-444-7204 to have food delivered to their cars and exit onto South Union Street.

Online carryout orders include everything from lamb dishes to chicken souvlaki, pastitsio, gyros and sides. New this year are online party packs for hungry crowds at home. Twelve party packs are being offered, from eight lamb shanks for $95 to a full tray of pastitsio for $155.

Repeat customers

In pre-COVID days, more than 20,000 attended the three-day festival, which has no admission fee. Last year, the full festival was held in the tent outside, with no inside dining, drawing more than 10,000. In 2020, the Greek Fest was carryout only.

The church volunteers are used to repeat customers who look forward to the Greek fare each year.

"A lot of the same people do come back every year and a lot come back multiple days," Barry said.

Gyros are the hottest-selling item in the tent and lamb shank is the biggest seller inside, with about 600 sold each year. Baklava is the highest-selling dessert.

Church volunteers make all of the food for the festival but the labor-intensive dolmathes, which are purchased from an outside vendor. More than 100 volunteers make the festival happen each year.

"Our festival is our outlet to feed the community and meet people," Barry said.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Greek Festival Akron: Bring on the souvlaki and baklava!