Greg Cook’s marriage to his half-Greek, half-Italian wife, JoAnn, has had its culinary benefits. But baklava? That perk didn’t come until he made the leap from office-bound mortgage lender to owner of Papa G’s Pizza ’n Grill. Greg, who describes his heritage as “mostly German,” has in the past year embarked on a Greek food adventure through the canons of that Mediterranean cuisine, from gyros to spinach pie to those phyllo dough masterpieces, baklava.
“I think I’ve made more baklava in the past year than we ever made in 20 years of marriage,” Greg jokes.
When the mortgage business “was completely on its ear” about a year ago, he traded computers for aprons and decided to buy his first restaurant, an unassuming pizza and gyro spot called Pappouli’s Pizza. It had a solid reputation — it was founded by the late restaurateur Jim Karahalios, a veteran of the business who started J&G Pizza Palace — and came with a number of top-secret family recipes he was eager to learn.
Those first months, he admits, were like “having a newborn.” “I think a lot of times people have a grandiose idea of owning a restaurant,” Greg says. “But there’s so much more to it.”
A year later, he is clad in all black and dusted with flour, a man devoted to his kitchen. He doesn’t fiddle so much as command — pizza dough, Greek salad, gyros. He pours honey syrup onto loukoumathes (fried Greek donuts) with confidence. He’s changed the restaurant’s name to the less tongue-tying title Papa G’s Pizza ’n Grill. And he is committed to cooking the Greek family recipes, both from Karahalios and from area families, completely from scratch. Gyros, especially, are a “lost art,” he says — grinding the lamb in-house and seasoning, patting and shaping it into a cone for the spit, are all necessary steps. “Part of our story is that we make everything to order,” Cook says. “I question if people sometimes care, but that’s something that makes us different. They come here for that and they can’t get it anywhere else.”
Through the inherited and acquired recipes, Greg has become “an honorary Greek.” And that baklava? It’s from an unlikely source — wife JoAnn’s Italian mother. “She wasn’t Greek,” JoAnn says, “but she was a hell of a cook.”
Papa G’s Pizza ‘n Grill, 5127 Main St., in the Southbriar Shopping Center. Open Monday 11am-9pm; Tuesday thru Thursday 11am-10pm; Friday 11am-11pm; Saturday 4-11pm; Sunday 4-9pm. 419-882-8877. www.facebook.com/PapaGsPizza.
