After more than a year in the works, a new family-run Greek and Canadian restaurant has opened on Atherley Road.
Grillin’ It opened this past weekend, offering dine-in and takeout food, with plans to open up the patio and begin serving weekend breakfast in the near future.
“We're very happy to be open. It's been a long time coming,” said manager Nick Liotos. “We're looking forward to seeing everybody in the summer for the festivals. All of us are mostly local here, so we're all about our local community.”
With Liotos managing the front-of-house operations, and his grandfather running the kitchen, the restaurant is a family affair that aims to bring old school Greek dishes to Orillia.
“We have all Greek staff in the back of the kitchen, so we like to stick to the very old- school-style recipes,” Liotos said. “We're doing chicken and pork souvlaki; we're going to be adding in moussaka and a couple other traditional Greek dishes.”
The family previously operated a breakfast restaurant, Flippin’ Eggs, at the same Atherley Road location, and Liotos said the new restaurant’s kitchen staff is well-versed in cooking quality Greek dishes.
“My grandfather's been doing this kind of stuff for years. One of the cooks used to run purely a souvlaki stick place, as well, so they're very, very proficient at what they do, and we've had nothing but compliments so far,” he said.
Burgers and sandwiches, poutine, and other Canadian dishes are offered alongside Greek salad, Greek fries, and several souvlaki dishes for the public to enjoy.
“Everything we do is completely handmade in the back. There's no frozen, coming off a truck, pre-seasoned, nothing like that — we build all the seasonings, all the rubs, everything,” Liotos said.
The restaurant is open for business seven days a week, and Liotos said he is excited for things to get started.
“There was a lot of build up to it, let's say, and we finally came to our boiling point and now we're working,” he said. “We’re looking forward to the sunshine and seeing everybody around.”
