The Gyro Project
Posted by estiator at 10 August, at 04 : 42 AM Print
COVER STORY
Launches “Fast-Fine” Greek
Partners George Tenedios and Spiro Kokkosis bridge quick-service and fine dining.
LIKE ITS ELEVATED FAST-CASUAL MENU, everything about The Gyro Project feels both familiar and fresh. • With its debut this summer in Fort Lee, New Jersey—and, eventually, expansion nationwide—the restaurant is bringing something new to the East Coast: modern takes on Greek street food, with top-quality provisions, in a designed setting that’s a step above quick-service.
“We’re calling it fast-fine,” says George Tenedios, the successful New York restaurateur who is a cofounder of The Gyro Project. “It’s accessible for all-day, but sexy enough to drive dinner, too. And it’s something that’s not really available in this part of the country.”
Spiro Kokkosis, Tenedios’s cofounder, agrees. “We’re honing in on quality, the aesthetic, and, of course, the menu. Greek food is trending more than ever. The Gyro Project is our way of taking it to the next level.”
The Gyro Project will also showcase and sell Greek products. Its Agora, or marketplace, will feature small-batch, craft, imported packaged goods like infused vinegar, high-quality olive oils, house-blended custom spices and rubs, packaged snacks, dips, and sauces. “We’re focusing on Hellenic artisan producers, as well as The Gyro Project–branded products” like Wild Greek Oregano and Papou’s Garlic Pepper, he says.
While The Gyro Project is a new venture for Kokkosis and Tenedios, both are successful young veterans of New York’s highly competitive restaurant business. Anticipating the upscale-greens trend by a decade, Tenedios founded salad chain Fresh &Co. while barely out of Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he majored in restaurant, culinary, and catering management. Fresh& Co. now boasts11 corporate-owned locations and three franchised stores, with more on the way.
His Greek-born father, who launched the hugely successful Café Metro quick-service brand in New York, also owns the Greek fine-dining spots Kyma and Elea. “Café Metro was not a typical New York deli–it was the classic NYC deli, elevated,” Tenedios says. “I created the Fresh & Co. concept to replace my father’s Cafe Metro legacy.
Fresh & Co. introduced healthy options like breakfast with cage-free eggs, a healthful salad bar, and a panini program. I would work in Café Metro on weekends and school breaks. I learned a lot.”
Kokkosis’s Greek-born father opened his first deli, at the corner of 50th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, in 1972. His holdings have grown to include Times Square staples including Majestic Deli, Premier Deli, and The Times Eatery. “Through the years, as I worked with my father and continued to expand what he’s built, I wanted to start something new, and I started pitching some ideas to George,” he says. The idea behind The Gyro Project came out of challenging circumstances. Both Tenedios and Kokkosis saw their businesses shuttered by Covid in 2020. The pair, both residents of Bergen County, New Jersey, “hung out a lot, ”Kokkosis says, laughing. “We started talking about the fact that there’s no Greek QSR in our area. We thought What if we created a concept to fill that void?”
Even as a rough sketch, The Gyro Project felt exciting, Kokkosis says. “You have the growing trend of the Mediterranean diet and Greek food as a whole. People are going to Greece and learning about the whole range of food and wine that Greece has to offer,” he says. “People only knew about fish or moussaka, or those 1980s gyros that people had in the U.S. We’re offering the food we’ve eaten ourselves in Greece, on an entire menu that could actually exist in Greece.”
With such an atypical approach to Greekfood, the partners knew they couldn’t take a conventional route with design. To execute their vision—fresh and fun, welcoming and warm, sexy and smart—they tapped acclaimed New York restaurant designer Chris Kofitsas, founder of K2 Studios and New World Design Builders.
“We didn’t want the concept to be overtly Greek, though we wanted it to be inspired by things that inspire us when we visit Greece, which we do every summer,” Kofitsas tells Estiator. “Setting out to create the fast-fine concept meant a space where you could get your food and eat it quickly, take it away, or sit down and enjoy the experience and the meal.”
Tenedios and Kokkosis approached the designer with the food concept. “I wanted to embellish it with an environment that would speak to the kind of food they were trying to convey in the space,” Kofitsas says. “We had a mood board with all the food and spaces in Greece that inspire us.”
The result is a room that is “very reminiscent of something you’d see in the Greek islands,” says Kofitsas, who has also designed Catch restaurants in New York and Los Angeles, ABC Kitchen for Jean-Georges Vongerichten in New York, Faccia a Facciain Boston, and 10 restaurants nationwide for restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow.
Memories of the legendary beachfront restaurant Scorpios in Mykonos inspired a pergola that spans part of the room. “You see pergolas all over Greece, where they give you rest from the sun and also open to the air in some areas,”Kofitsas says. The Gyro Project space in Fort Lee is “very tall, with 15-foot ceilings, «he adds. “We also wanted to bring the scale down a bit, and the pergola accomplishes that.”
Rather than the typical blue-and-white decor of Greek eateries—“played out,” according to Kofitsas—the room features rich woodsand wooden beams painted in a bleached white “that exposes their grain,” Kofitsas says. “We were lucky enough to get reclaimed lumber, and it automatically looks weathered.” A feature wall pops with an underlit floral design, and another “green” wall imposes ample plantings on a wood background.
With freestanding tables at the center and banquettes at the perimeter, the 70-seatspace also accounts for third-party delivery with a space for packaging meals and grab-and-go sales.
“The design is a template for The Gyro Project. We want people feeling like they want to come back. It’s simple, casual, unfussy dining.”
“We designed the restaurant to be modern Mediterranean,” Tenedios says. “It’s got the light color palate, and that gorgeous pergola covering the entire ceiling. It’s a beautifully built restaurant that’s sexy enough to enjoy at night with a bottle of wine or a mocktail.”
Like the restaurant’s bright, eye-catching look, the menu brings jolts of freshness and flavor to Greek favorites. To bring their culinary vision to life, the partners tapped chef Fotis Mazarakis, a Kefalonia native “with an extensive culinary background” who moved to New York five years ago, Tenedios says.
A sampling of starters and sides: The Gyro Project’s OG Fries translate as hand-cut fries with wild oregano and crumbled feta cheese. Grilled halloumi cheese comes drizzled with sour cherry preserve. Greek Croquettes are crispy cheese puffs stuffed with kefalotiri cheese and drizzled with hot honey. Traditional staples get a boost in color and flavor from Chef Mazarakis, including gigantes, dolmades, and a Dip Sampler of tzatziki, spicy feta, and hummus served with grilled pita points.
While mains are ambitious, they’re carefully edited and constructed for the flexibility diners demand now. Rotisserie chicken is seasoned with the restaurant’s signature TGP BBQ blend, served with Greek slaw, juicy lemon potatoes, choice of one dip, and grilled pita points. Moussaka, pastichio, and garlic-rubbed lamb chops offer fresh renditions of Greek classics. Salads include a classic Greek, Greek Caesar, and a Prassini green salad, with optional protein add-ons like pork belly, beef, lamb, or chicken, along with vegetarian options like falafel and halloumi. And The Gyro Project’s signature pitas include a regular or whole-wheat pita, protein add-on of meats, souvlaki meats, or vegetarian choices, and house-made sauces like tzatziki, spicy feta, “TGP sauce,” harissa, and honey mustard. Fish and chips will feature fresh branzino with hand-cut fries.
In keeping with the “fast-fine” concept, The Gyro Project will offer a full suite of meals designed for take-out. The Whole Bird Rotisserie Meal offers feta-brined rotisserie free-range chicken seasoned with the signature TGPBBQ Blend, served with classic Greek salad, juicy lemon potatoes, choice of two dips, and grilled pita points. The aptly named TGP Feast provides Greek-style lamb chops, chicken souvlaki, pork souvlaki, beef and lamb gyro, pork belly gyro, and chicken gyro, served with hand-cut fries, classic Greek salad, spicy feta, hummus, tzatziki, and grilled pita points.
“We’re doing meals that are perfect for the family, whether you take out or dine in-store,” Kokkosis says. “Our dining room is incredibly welcoming, but The Gyro Project concept is as in or out as you choose to be.”Packaging is getting manufactured in Greece with The Gyro Project’s branding, he adds.
Over the next few years, the pair hope for “a dozen locations, either corporate or franchised,” Kokkosis says.
Tenedios and Kokkosis didn’t skimp on sweets for The Gyro Project’s inaugural menu. A thoughtful dessert list includes Greek yogurt with sour-cherry preserve; house-made rice pudding with cinnamon and raisins; bougatsa, the semolina custard between layers of phyllo; and miniature baklava bites. An extensive coffee program uses beans from Ioannis Coffee Chef, a Greek-owned, Brooklyn-based artisan roaster.
While The Gyro Project’s debut location won’t yet serve beer or wine, Tenedios and Kokkosis are planning house mock-tails made with Greek products like 3 Cents, the small-batch soft drinks produced by the team behind The Clumsies in Athens, «one of the world’s top-rated bars,” Tenedios says. “When we open our New York City locations, we’ll serve beer and wine, with a focus on Greek producers.”
What advice would The Gyro Project partners have for other entrepreneurs looking to start restaurant brands?
“Take the extra weeks or months in planning before you start cutting checks to vendors,” says Tenedios. “We got excited along the process. We had a different vision in mind in the beginning, and it took on a life of its own. As it evolved, we decided just to make the adjustments, hone in on who we wanted to be, and perfect what we want The Gyro Project to be.”
Over the next few years, the pair hope for “a dozen locations, either corporate or franchised, ”Kokkosis says. “And multi-state.” Work on their second location, also in New Jersey, is underway; a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan will follow.
“After that, franchises are a strong possibility. We built this concept so we could scale it,” he says.
The customer, Tenedios says, is “all demographics. That’s the beauty of what we’re curating and creating. Maybe our daytimes will get younger customers who enjoy some froyo with their take-out. In the evening, I think we’ll attract an older demographic who enjoys the dining aspect.”
How did their fathers react to the duo’s plans for The Gyro Project? “Let’s just say that Greeks like to give each other their opinions,” Tenedios says, laughing. “We hold our fathers in high regard. And my father has much more experience in fine dining than either Spiro or I do.”
The Gyro Project is launching with a full catering menu, and an order-ahead and loyalty app is in development, Kokkosis says.“Greek food is on the uptick, especially here in the tri-state area,” he says. “We’re excited to bring some-thing completely new to market and share all the possibilities of great Greek food.”
The Gyro Project
2151 Lemoine Ave,
Fort Lee, NJ
201-571-4501
thegyroproject.com
