Gardens of Salonica, the Greek restaurant that has anchored a corner of Northeast Minneapolis since 1991, is planning to close in 2027, bringing a 36-year chapter of the neighborhood’s history to an end. Owner Anna Christoforides will be 70 when the doors finally shut, closing out a business that began as a scrappy vending operation and grew into one of the Twin Cities’ most enduring Greek food institutions.
The story, as told to Racket, traces back to 1978, when Christoforides met her husband, Lazaros, in the Russian Department at the University of Minnesota while she was finishing an honors bachelor’s degree in studio arts. He went on to earn a master’s degree in mass communications, and the couple eventually built a life together that would center on food.
Before there was a restaurant, there was a vending business. Anna and Lazaros started out selling boughatsa, using a certified kitchen inside a building that is now the Cobalt Condominiums, Racket reports. Their first customer was Surdyk’s, followed by a run of coffee shops that have since vanished from the city, and two years spent selling at the Uptown Art Fair.
From Deli Counter to Neighborhood Fixture
When Gardens of Salonica opened in 1991, it looked nothing like the restaurant Twin Cities diners know today. There were seven tables and two counters offering imported groceries and Häagen-Dazs, functioning more like a deli than a sit-down restaurant, per Racket’s account. Full menus did not arrive until two years later…