At Athens Pizza and Pasta, it’s a family affair – even if you’re not blood-related.
Operating on Auburn’s Main Street since 1980, Athens has been an institution, offering Mediterranean dishes, which includes pizza, pasta, Greek salad and their famous foot-long hot oven grinders.
The Reporter spoke with Yianni Contoravdis, a 29-year-old worker at Athens and the grandson of Anastasios “Tasso” and Elefteria Tsantilas, the original owners of the beloved restaurant. Contoravdis grew up working in the restaurant, which is now owned by his father Bill, his uncle Tom, and his mother Nina, who handles social media .
“It was the best to be honest with you,” Contoravdis said of growing up in the family business. “You have unlimited pizza, so as a kid that makes making friends pretty easy, so I had a great childhood. I worked in the restaurant growing up when I was in elementary school. I would just kind of help out on weekends, and then when I turned 13, that’s when I started washing dishes.”
Contoravdis says that he considers working with his large family, which includes his grandparents as his grandmother Elefteria still makes the restaurant’s meatballs by hand, as a blessing, adding that this appreciation extends to the Auburn community.
“Auburn is unique in many ways, but just [the community is] unbelievably supportive and what you put into the city is typically what you get out of it. We’ve been around for 40 years, and it’s because of the people are supporting us. It’s not because our food is the best in the world, or anything like that, it’s because we respect and appreciate our customers and are here to serve them,” he said.
The food certainly has something to do with Athens’ popularity: they have won many Best of Auburn awards, and when the restaurant hit hard times in 2020, people came out to continue buying their famous grinders.
“A prime example would be in 2020, the building had a fire and we were closed for 16 months and we were doing cold take-and-bake sandwiches and dinners that we had from a refrigerated box truck that we were gifted from Peterson,” he said, adding that Zola’s Café, Trotters and Auburn mayor Nancy Backus, who he says allowed Athens to use the kitchen in the Auburn Community Center for a discounted price.
“I remember every single person that helped us, I remember the customers at the first take-and-bake we had. We prepared 100 grinders, and there was probably 150-200 people in line. Those grinders were gone by the fifth person, the 10th person. People were getting three, four, five of them at a time, and when we ran out of food, no one got mad, they just came, and they shared condolences. They gave us a hug, they said, ‘Hey, we can’t wait for you to get back on your feet. Let us know what we can do for you.’ That’s why I love working here because, we always say if it wasn’t for Auburn, we wouldn’t have been back.”
Athens has tremendous gratitude to the community and on Thursday, Nov. 26 they will be paying it forward with their 15th annual free Thanksgiving Day meal, where Athens Pizza and Pasta volunteers will offer packed meals on a first come, first serve basis. The event will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the restaurant’s location at 959 East Main St.
To learn more about the free Thanksgiving meal, the restaurant’s menu and more, visit athenspizzaauburn.com.
Dining and Cooking