A new Greek restaurant is opening in the former pub space on the southeast corner of NE 60th Avenue and Glisan Street. Tréla Greek cuisine and tavern is the creation of four friends who share Greek heritage and culinary skills. The name translates from the Greek as “craze”, meaning both manic energy and good madness. After a delay in opening due to the pandemic, the group is seeking community support through a Go-Fund-Me Campaign to combat rising construction costs.
Brothers Napoleon and Anthony Tzakis have worked in family restaurants for decades, learning the restaurant trade and honing their skills. “We started in the Beaverton area on Canyon Road with a touch of Athens in 1990. Our parents had that until the early 2000s. During that time we opened our doors at Rock Creek Country Club, Hillsboro, and we also had a downtown location on First and Main. For the past ten years, we had a restaurant in Beaverton, near Canyon Road, called Antoni’s,” Napoleon Tzakis said. Looking for their next restaurant project, the Tzakis brothers enlisted the skills of their friend and chef Emmett Fraser, who will join Anthony in running Tréla’s kitchen. Another friend, Jordan Johnson, will also join the team.
Napoleon and Anthony Tzakis chose the location because of his personal history with their family, signing the lease months before the pandemic hit. The generations of bars that operated at 6000 NE Glisan Street were a backdrop to the brothers’ childhood as they visited their grandparents who lived a block away. Their grandparents’ home was one of many Greek-American homes in the area, located near the Greek Orthodox church in the 32nd and Glisan. The bar itself has a family connection with the Tzakis brothers. Their great-grandfather was a regular at the local bar when he was in the area.
The building’s history as a neighborhood commons had the right energy for what the four partners envisioned. They plan to design a restaurant and offer dishes that were once prevalent in this neighborhood before the younger generations left. Their efforts go beyond creating a traditional, family-style Greek restaurant. They hope to celebrate and share their culture with Portland, just as the Greek community in Oregon has done for over 100 years.
The menu will include seasonal dishes using fresh local ingredients. However, they will provide many of the basic dishes that people expect from a Greek restaurant. They plan to offer spanakopita, lamb chops, calamari, octopus and Greek salad. Additionally, the chefs will draw inspiration from Greek street food to create unique dishes not usually represented on other menus.
The funds of Go-Fund-Me Campaign will support the final renovations of the space. The owner of the building helped remove some of the construction from the previous tenant and repaired the facade of the store after years of rest. The interior finish belongs to the Tréla team, and all these costs exceeded the pre-pandemic budget. Tréla will initially open for dinner service, with a planned extension to include lunch hours once staff are comfortable with operations. Keep an eye on the business instagram account for their opening date in the fall of 2023.
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