Little Rock construction executive Gus Vratsinas has vivid memories of that first Greek Food Festival in 1984 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. Orthodox congregations across the country had held similar events for years and raised large amounts of money in the process.
"It was a no-brainer," Vratsinas says. "This kind of thing had been going on in other cities for decades. Our church had been selling gyros since they started Riverfest so we decided to create our own festival. We bounced around with the dates through the years and finally settled on the weekend before Memorial Day. It keeps getting bigger. Last year was our largest event yet with about 30,000 people turning out over three days. That's obviously more than a 200-family church can handle, so now we rely a lot on volunteers."
This year's festival will take place May 20-22 at the church at 1100 Napa Valley Drive in west Little Rock. These days, it's officially the International Greek Food Festival since more than Greek foods are served. It's the largest ethnic festival in the state, with everything from baklava and gyros to calamari and Armenian pizza. There's also a market at which visitors can buy items such as Greek olive oil, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, salad dressing and cheeses.
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church moved into its current facility in June 1983, leaving the church building at 15th and Center streets in Little Rock where pastry sales had been held on a regular basis through the years. The church had purchased the building at 15th and Center in 1919 from Winfield Methodist Church.
"Thanks in part to the money we raised from the food festival, we had the mortgage paid off on the new building by 1989," Vratsinas says. "At that point, we began giving to various charities. Those charities, in turn, started supplying us with volunteers for the festival. We've got this thing pretty well figured out after 32 years, but you're always tweaking things. When we designed the current church, we put in a big kitchen that could handle our baking needs. The ladies who make the pastries now start work in December. Last year, we made 24,000 pieces of baklava and sold out. This year, we'll have 30,000."
With music and additional activities, the festival is also a way to celebrate the rich Greek heritage in Arkansas. Vratsinas' father came to the United States in 1912 at age 12 but later went back to Greece. He eventually returned to the United States and wound up in Little Rock, where an uncle operated a downtown café. Vratsinas' mother came to this country from Greece in 1939. Vratsinas is quick to list the Little Rock restaurants once owned by those who came from Greece--the Post Office Café, the Maxwell House Café, Miller's Café, the Palace and others.
"From their beginnings as laborers, Greeks in Arkansas quickly became entrepreneurs and business owners, and many of the children and grandchildren of these original immigrants went on to business, academic and medical careers," Helen Hronas wrote for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "Many Greeks who come to Arkansas today are in the medical or research fields. Emblematic of the acceptance of Greeks by the state has been the popularity of the Greek Food Festival, one of the most well-attended culinary fetes in the state.
"Immigrants from Greece began arriving in Arkansas in the late 19th century. Most were single young males who left their homeland for the United States full of hope for a more prosperous life. Greece was very poor at the time, and some parts of northern Greece had not yet won their freedom from the Turkish Ottoman yoke. It was a dangerous and difficult three-week voyage, and many left with little more than the clothes on their backs and a few coins. The first priority of those who were married was to earn enough money to send for their wives and children. Most immigrants became permanent residents, but others saved their money and returned to Greece."
The majority of early Greek immigrants came to Arkansas from villages in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. Anastasios Stathakis arrived in Little Rock from Sparta in 1892. Many of the later immigrants were housed for a time in Little Rock at the home of Pelopida and Eugenia Kumpuris. The Kumpuris name is still well-known in Little Rock, and the Stathakis name remains well-known at Hot Springs.
"The newly arrived usually worked for a time for those who came earlier while picking up enough English to get by," Hronas wrote. "Few had an opportunity for formal schooling, although some were well-educated in Greece before immigrating. Many did hard labor such as building railroad tracks and, as was common with immigrants who spoke little or no English, sometimes the employer refused to pay once the job was done. Such discrimination and abuse provided Greeks an incentive to go into business for themselves as well as educate their children. The Greeks were soon running fruit and vegetable markets, hot dog stands, candy shops, grocery stores, cleaners or shoeshine parlors. Most gravitated toward food service."
Given the Greek tradition of being in the food-service industry in Arkansas, it's fitting that we celebrate with a food festival each May. "We probably had 3,000 or 4,000 people that first year of the festival, and we considered that a huge success," Vratsinas says. "We've continually improved it, and the crowds have continued to grow. It has really been fun to watch the evolution of this event."
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate communications for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 05/04/2016