From fast casual to fine dining: 50 years of the American gyro, and a look at the dish's Chicago history

Chicago Tribune

14-07-2025

It's the lunch rush on a busy Wednesday at Dengeos in suburban Skokie. The restaurant's menu reads like the guest list for a party dedicated to fans of Chicago greasy spoons — mustardy hot dogs, Italian beefs, Polish sausages and mostaccioli abound. And, of course, gyros. Dengeos is a Greek restaurant first and foremost, and it's been serving up the yogurty, salty pita pockets since 1972.
Behind the counter, between the shuffle of cooks and kitchen staff, Dengeos owner Nick Theodosis shows off the key to the joint's long-running success: three large machines, each with its own cone of rotating, sizzling gyro meat.
'These are the autodoners,' said Theodosis. 'And this,' he picked up a device that looked like a handheld Dyson fan, 'is called the Wizard. It shaves the gyro paper thin.'
In 1974 and 1975, only a few years after Dengeos first opened, two Chicago-based companies, Grecian Delights and Kronos Foods, began mass-producing the world's first hydraulically pressed gyro cones. This modern marvel of rotisserie meat allowed for a more consistent, and therefore easier-to-sell, product. Eventually, the two companies merged in 2020, but in the years prior, they helped turn an ancient dish (some estimate the cooking techniques behind the gyro could be at least 2,000 years old) into a fast-casual staple, one that launched as many Dengeos-style Greek eateries as Helen launched ships from Troy.
Now, over 50 years later, the popularity of the gyro has waned, as the classic Greek spots that once covered Chicago's North and West sides have dwindled, replaced by taquerías and shawarma joints as new waves of immigration have changed the city's culinary landscape. With fast-casual options out, Greek food in Chicago has moved in a more upscale direction, entering a new era of Greek fine dining that looks like it is here to stay.
When Theodosis' father opened Dengeos, he had just fled a Greece where the economy had been ravaged by Nazi occupation and a bitter civil war. Long before that, however, Chicago had been a major hub for Greek immigration. According to Katherine Kelaidis, director of research and content at Chicago's National Hellenic Museum, between approximately 40,000 and 60,000 Greek immigrants settled in the Chicago area in the years immediately following World War I. Between 1945 and 1974, it's estimated that an additional 80,000 to 100,000 Greek immigrants came to the Windy City, many of whom expected to earn money they could send back to the homeland.
There is actually a word in Greek for this periodic exodus, ',' said Kelaidis. Loosely translated, it means 'to go live in a foreign place to make money. Chicago is one of the first landing places for (Greek) people,' she said.
When Greeks began arriving in Chicago in the 20th century, said Kelaidis, they settled on the city's West and Southwest sides, neighborhoods such as Little Italy, West Town and, of course, Greektown.
Those with expendable capital began purchasing restaurants and gyro joints, places like Greektown's famed Greek Islands, which has been around since 1971, or the nearby Parthenon (where Kelaidis' grandparents had their first wedding anniversary), which closed in 2016 after 48 years in business.
These restaurants were important spaces where the Greek community could gather, said Kelaidis, and they also created avenues for Greek immigrants to assimilate into the wider culture of the United States.
Dino Sakkas certainly remembers his family's Lakeview restaurant, Gyros on the Spit, as a community gathering space.
Open from 1973 to 2000, the restaurant was an old-school counter-service spot. Gyros, kebabs, baklava and spanakopita would arrive in red baskets lined with wax paper and a side of fries. There was always Greek music playing that would bounce off the restaurant's fake candelabras, gingham tablecloths and wood paneling, Sakkas said.
'It was a Greek restaurant, but a lot of people used to say it kind of looked like an old German brew ,' Sakkas said.
Sakkas' uncle, one of the original owners of Greek Islands, helped his father start the business, but running the restaurant was really an all-hands-on-deck affair. When Sakkas' parents moved to Chicago from Greece in the 1970s, they didn't know many people, and Sakkas and his sister would spend most days after school hanging out at the restaurant. By 17, Sakkas was fully running the place.
Sakkas is proud to say that, unlike most gyro spots at the time, Gyros on the Spit never made the switch to Grecian Delight Kronos Food's hydraulically pressed gyro cones, preferring instead to do it the old-fashioned way, marinating, slicing and stacking their meats by hand.
This earned them a loyal following in the neighborhood. The lunch shift would see local building engineers, dinner would welcome large families (some Greek, some not) and the bar crowd would start rolling in around 2 in the morning and stay until 4 a.m. Sakkas' father would give everyone a shot of ouzo on their way out — complimentary, of course.
'I think the familiarity with Greek food, and an Americanized Greek food like the gyro, gave white Americans permission to see their Greek neighbors as one of them,' said Kelaidis of Chicago's Hellenic Museum.
According to Kelaidis, by the 1960s, Greeks had moved from being seen as an ethnic minority to being seen more simply as white Americans. With white flight pushing most second-generation Greeks out to the suburbs, Greektown was soon Greek in name only.
This exodus also meant fewer gyro spots. 'The block that my dad was on back in the early '70s, all the way to, I'd say mid-'90s, there were five (gyro places) on that block,' said Sakkas, 'and now there's none.'
With the loss of many classic gyro spots, the Greek restaurant void has been filled by second- and third-generation Greek chefs who are putting their own spins on the classics they grew up eating.
Among them is Doug Psaltis, a Greek restaurateur and chef-owner of Andros Taverna in the Logan Square neighborhood. One of the largest changes Psaltis sees from his grandfather's generation of Greek restaurants is their design.
According to Psaltis, Greek restaurants used to have the 'Greek restaurant kit' — white stucco walls, azure blue ceilings and fake frescos of the motherland. This has since been replaced by more modern designs that feel more artistically driven, a change that is reflected in the food as well, said Psaltis. Whereas before you might have Greek dishes that were tweaked for an American palette, restaurants (and restaurantgoers) have now begun embracing more modern takes on traditional dishes that highlight the freshness of Mediterranean cuisine.
At Andros Taverna, this looks like flying in fresh fish from markets in Athens and Barcelona, and baking their spanakopita to order rather than in large tray bakes that were more popular in the Greek diner generation of Psaltis' grandfather.
When Psaltis first opened Andros Taverna in 2021, he wasn't planning on doing a gyro at all. 'I was like, no, it's not that kind of restaurant… This isn't like a quick eats place. It's a restaurant.'
After playing around with the recipe, the restaurant now serves its signature gyro made with Midwestern pork, cooked over a charcoal grill and nestled in their made-to-order pitas. It's one of the most popular items on their menu, said Psaltis.
Upscale gyros are also doing well on the menu at Meze Table, a Greek catering business based in Bridgeport run by best friends and collaborators Elizabeth Morris and Beth Salentiny.
Like Theodosis and Psaltis, Salentiny also comes from a family of Greek restaurant owners and grew up eating Hellenic classics with a Midwestern bent. Her mother used to make a meatloaf with beef, pork and Greek spices that she would slice thin and serve pita-gyro style. She would also replace the more traditional fixings with Midwest staples like mayo, onions and lettuce — a Mediterranean meatloaf turned rustic gyro.
Salentiny and Morris still make their gyros in a meatloaf pan before slicing thin strips that are crisped up on the stove. As if a meatloaf gyro wasn't Midwestern enough, the duo debuted their latest creation, the 'Gyro Hero' at a pop-up in June at Electric Funeral in Bridgeport. The sandwich features their homestyle gyro on a hoagie roll topped with a tzatziki-style slaw. You can try the sandwich at their next pop-up at Maria's Bar in Bridgeport on July 22.
'I'm so stoked to do it. It's a good blend of Maxwell Street-style counter food and gyros and Greek food together,' said Salentiny.
Avgeria Stapaki, chef-owner of the Greek fusion restaurant Táma in the Bucktown neighborhood, is working on plans to open a counter service gyro joint where she will serve 'authentic Greek gyros' alongside Greek potatoes and Greek wines.
The Greek-born and -raised Stapaki is known for fusing food from her homeland with cuisine from other cultures, creating flavors as uniquely Chicago as they are classically Greek; dishes like Táma's guacamole, which comes with a pico de gallo that mimics the flavor profiles of a Greek horiatiki salad, or their avgolemono ramen, which switches out the Greek soup's traditional starchy rice with ramen noodles.
Stapaki said the number of Greek fine dining restaurants has more than doubled since she first visited the city in 2016. For evidence of this trend, she points toward fine dining darlings like Avli Taverna, which opened in 2018 and has a kitchen staff led by Greek-born chefs.
Amid the fine dining fog, Theodosis, the owner of Dengeos in Skokie, said he will continue to serve up the classic gyros that have kept his customers coming back for the last 50 years.
'When we go to Greece, every corner has a gyro stand,' said Theodosis, 'It's just an awesome sandwich.Chicago fire: Flaming saganaki sparks interest worldwide decades after its Greektown origin