This past Labor Day weekend, the Central West End’s St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church hosted their annual St. Louis Greek Festival by decorating the corner of Kingshighway Boulevard and Forest Park Avenue blue and white, serving authentic cuisine and providing free entertainment to celebrate Hellenic culture. Many members of St. Nicholas were in attendance, but many patrons were there to casually enjoy the many amenities the festival had to offer.

A main attraction for many festival-goers was the food, which was served in three large canopies beside the street corner. Vendors lined Forest Park Avenue to serve traditional Greek dishes; the waiting lines were long but the aroma coming from the grills enticed me to endure the wait. When I arrived at the counter, I realized I did not recognize any items on the menu. Once the cashier recognized my confusion, it was recommended that I try the pastitsio and spanakopita. In an effort to be less surprised by the meal to come, I did background research on the dishes I ordered. Pastitsio, for lack of a better interpretation, resembles lasagna. It uses Greek pasta and is baked with lamb and Bechamel sauce (more commonly known as white sauce). The spanakopita, which translates to “spinach pie” (spanako: spinach, pita: pie) is a layered dinner pastry which was savory but flakey akin to baklava. The latter brought me out of my comfort zone but I was not disappointed.

The canopy next door took a more Americanized approach to Greek cuisine. The “Athenian Deli” served gyro sandwiches with tzatziki dip and fried saganaki. Behind the counter you could see multiple skewers of barbecued lamb being peeled off by knife onto toasted pita as well as the occasional jumping flames from the frying of the saganaki. Billows of smoke from the barbecue pit could be seen down Kingshighway Boulevard as free advertisement for the festival. I was stunned by how hard the volunteers and vendors worked, and their efforts were evidenced by the happy faces of patrons dining under the “Athenian Deli” canopy.

The festival, which spanned Sept. 1-3, attracted an estimated 40,000 people from the St. Louis county area despite the intense heatwave. Luckily, the festival had just as many attractions indoors as it did outside. Within the Grecian-style walls of St. Nicholas, a gift shop displayed imported jewelry, cookbooks and foodstuffs. The jewelry consisted of necklaces using intricate minerals and gemstones from the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. The cookbooks for sale were written by both renowned chefs specializing in Greek cuisine as well as vendors at the festival. By the time I arrived to the festival at noon on Monday, the shop had actually run out of the Greek-style salad dressing which had been used in food preparation at the festival and was bottled by members of St. Nicholas’ congregation. Needless to say, I missed my opportunity. As well as the aforementioned gifts, the shop also sold numerous trinkets and memorabilia so no one was to leave without taking a small piece of Greece with them.

Upon entering the gift shop, younger members of the parish dressed in traditional Greek folk dance garb greeted you and distributed information detailing upcoming church events and services. I would soon see these same church members in a live performance next door to the gift shop. Members performed dances that paid homage to Greek Orthodox heritage and astounded an audience of clergy and festival-goers alike. The entertainment continued as the church brought in a talented bouzouki player. The bouzouki, an instrument similar in appearance to a guitar or mandolin, is an integral part of rebetiko, a musical genre which was adopted by Greece in the early 20th century. The musician’s performance blended traditional western music and rebetiko to create an astounding sound. Despite the music and dance being all Greek to me, I thoroughly enjoyed the high-spirited, fun-loving atmosphere.

To pair with food, the festival also served the Greek draft beer Zeos located in what was called the “Taverna.” “Taverna” is the Hellenic term for a small order restaurant and, interestingly enough, serves as the etymology for the American term “tavern”. During the mid-afternoons, the Taverna also hosted wine tastings sponsored by a local Missouri winery, Ionia. For after dinner eating, the festival provided a buffet of desserts. Not only did they serve just-baked baklava, but dozens of other nut-and honey-based foods as well. The delicate pastries were very complimentary to the full-flavored meat and cheeses I had consumed earlier and was a great conclusion to my experience at the festival.

The St. Louis Greek festival was a wholesome experience which I would recommend to anyone next year who had an uneventful Labor Day weekend in 2018. But on a more general note, St. Nicholas demonstrated to me the amazing benefits of living in a diverse city such as St. Louis. When one gets the opportunity to experience simple components of another culture such as food, dance, literature, etc., it not only broadens their perspective but also can be a source of fun. I’m never eager to call learning “fun”, but this festival was just that. Opa!