Photo: Adios, pupusas. Yiassou, souvlaki. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
Only a couple of months after its grand opening on Georgia Avenue (and a week after The Penguin’s published review), Pupseria El Oasis has turned out the lights.
In its place will be The Big Greek Cafe, according to a man on site Saturday who identified himself as “Marco”, one of the new restaurant’s owners.
Yeah, that’s right: The Big Greek Cafe. Not to be confused with The Greek Place, that other joint formerly known as The Big Greek Cafe. Here’s the deal, according to Marco:
Not long ago, the owners of a taqueria on Georgia near Wayne Avenue partnered with the brothers who own the Golden Flame restaurant on Fenton Street. This collaboration gave rise to the first Big Greek Cafe, which scored a lot of kudos from the community and Penguin taste testers.
By early May, disagreements forced that business partnership to dissolve. The restaurant closed briefly in May to address air-conditioning issues, then reopened as The Greek Place. The owners of that restaurant were not contacted for this article.
Around the same time, business at the Pupuseria El Oasis near Mayor’s Promenade was circling the drain. When that place threw in the towel, those brothers from the Golden Flame got together with our storyteller Marco (of Da Marco Italian restaurant on Colesville Road, he said) to reincarnate The Big Greek Cafe two blocks south of its original site.
The new Big Greek Cafe is expected to open in early July, with or without its liquor license, Marco said. The menu will feature Greek fare (duh), and outdoor seating will be available along Georgia Avenue, he added.
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Ohh, exciting! I love Da Marco, hadn’t realized till now the connection! Looking forward to this…
Was wondering what was going on with the Big Greek Cafe transforming into The Greek Place. Food at the Place for last 2 visits was not as good as what I remembered at the Cafe. (Kabobs are the items that took the biggest hit for me.) Foot traffic seems to be less too. However, the menu items and quality are similar enough that the two really need to distinguish themselves from each other better!
Since it is mentioned in the post, is Da Marco good or not? I’ve heard a bunch of mixed opinions on it. Is it expensive? I know I should just try, but usually my mindset is that if I want Italian I’ll just go to Olazzo’s because I know it will be good. But if Da Marco is worth a try, I’ll definitely switch things up.
We are big fans of Da Marco, just know that it’s kind of a quirky place. For example, if you go on a Tuesday night, you can only have pizza, but if you go on any other night, you cannot have pizza at all.
And we’ll surely be following the original owners to the new Big Greek Cafe. That place was the best thing to hit downtown SS in years.
We’ve gone to DeMarco’s twice, with the second time being done as an opportunity to see if maybe they were just having a bad night the first time. Sadly, the second time was just as bad.
Friendly but poor service, below average food, prices higher than either the service or food justifies. We have zero desire to go back there.
Wait. Are you saying the “original” Greek venue (now “Place”) is run by the guys who ran the failed taco joint that previously occupied that site?
Editor’s note: Yep. — JD (Jun 8, 2009)
My expereince at Da Marco has been very positive. Keep in mind that is for dinner. At lunch it can be pretty ordinary, lots of tale out and sandwhiches. Dinner is another story, all sit down. It has a very limited menu, which changes, but being a small place that makes sense and each item gets the chef’s, that would be Mrs Da Marco, attention. I once took a group of 10 (all seasoned eaters, some I would classify as ‘foodies’) and everyone was positively impressed. A few commented that the calamari was the best they ever had.
Da Marco is one of our very favorite places in DTSS. We’ve been four or five times, and we absolutely love it. Everything is always so delicious and tastes so authentic. We’ve never been disappointed. We love the main waitress who works on Saturday nights. She is so sweet. Everytime we see her, we want to just give her a great big hug. We think it’s very reasonably priced. As like Craig, I’ve never been there for lunch, but I would definitely recommend it for dinner.
We’ve been to Da Marco’s a few times. The service is incredibly friendly, though not always efficient. The appetizers we’ve had have been so-so, but the homemade pasta is always wonderful. It makes the food at Olazzo look like it came out of a jar.
We had a terrific dinner at Da Marco’s tonight – the pasta special was ‘melt in your mouth’ and delicious. We then walked down Georgia, saw the two Greek places (several blocks apart). Having backlavah at the latter (Big Greek) just across from the old fire station waiting to be a Hook & Ladder microbrewery), we laughed when we spied Marco looking things over behind the counter.
My wife and I think we’ll do a take out taste test at some point just to see for ourselves. I mentioned to Marco that at least this wasn’t a Greek/Turk squabble ;-)