25 Years of Bar Spetsa – A Celebration!
By Helen Grubner. Filed in Uncategorized |
Balloon Man – Costas
Saturday 3 November – first task of the day … take the cats to the Vet for their vaccinations. Costas’ first trip with Oliver, the biggest one alone in the cat cage. Second trip with Bob and Sydney … alas, the elusive, timid one Larissa was nowhere to be found. She would go the following morning. I cooked and we sat down to eat a substantial English breakfast of bacon and eggs, sausages, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes … fortification for the night ahead.
Costas went to the Bar at the usual time of 2000 hours … I followed sometime before 2100 hours and wow – the Bar looked absolutely amazing. Ray and Heather, together with a couple of others had spent two hours decorating … all in silver, of course, as this was after all a celebration of the Silver Anniversary, 25 years of the business. Every bottle had been wrapped in tin foil, not to mention all other items they could find to treat in the same way, including the telephone and oranges in a bowl. Silver streamers covering the walls, the magic number of 25 displayed in many places, as well as on all the helium balloons perched just below the ceiling. Party hats, including a very special Happy Birthday Cake Hat for Costas. Laminated photographs from over the years displayed around the Bar, as well as a slide show on a small computer. A tiny birthday cake for one, complete with silver firecracker, which was lit out on the windowsill of the Bar.
Familiar faces, too many to mention … some who have frequented the Bar since it’s inception 25 years’ ago. The biggest surprise of the night for Costas was when Andy and Lesley walked in – two of his first customers from the early days. They had just arrived from the UK and came especially to be with the Greek on this very special night. After all, it was his night and we were all there to enjoy the occasion with him … unbelievable!
If I remember correctly, we made it home around 0430 hours. The following day was pretty much spent recovering from the night before then in the evening we went for a quiet meal at possibly my favourite taverna on the island – Paxni. Costas and Niki, the owners there, have a wonderful garden which you see as you walk up the driveway … the food is fresh, organic and simply to die for. Wonderful salads and meats cooked on charcoals … I had the lamb cutlets which were superb.
Decided we would go to Votsalo Bar for a couple of drinks before heading home. On the walk there we saw Andy and Lesley dining at Spetsiotiko … Costas invited them to join us after their meal. What a wonderful ending to one of the most amazing weekends I believe I have ever had in my life.
Tuesday, November 6th 2012 at 7:52 pm |
Geia sou ……Earlier I was looking at your extensive photo album and find that you had meals at Eleniko restaurant in Pigadia on the island of Karpathos and stayed at Leonidas hotel in Gythion. I know both these places quite well. Ain’t it a small world? jbm