5 tips for the Greek Festival
Attending the Greek Festival can make anyone, Richmond neophyte or lifer alike, feel overwhelmed. Here are five quick tips to help streamline your trip to the fest and optimize the amount of your time spent eating baklava and drinking wine.
1. Set your expectations
Honestly, “set your expectations” is a pretty great tip for life in general, but it certainly applies to the Greek Festival. There will be a trillion people in attendance. You will wait in line. It will be hot as a snake. If you know and acknowledge these things going in, you’ll have a much more pleasant experience!
2. Don’t go hungry
Tip number two is a corollary of tip number one. Since you’ll be waiting in line for food and drink for a quick second, don’t show up hungry! No one wants to see an adult melting down like a toddler and throwing a tantrum because they’re starving. Grab a snack before you head out the door–your friends and family will thank you.
3. Divide and conquer
Once you arrive at the Fest de Greek, split your party up!1 Send half the group to grab a table and half the group to get some food & booze. If you ask me, aim for the former group–less standing required.
4. Start with the wine
If you’ve been relegated to the food & booze team, hit the wine line first. While your lazy friends luxuriate in the shade, you can show them what for by drinking wine while you…stand in line. Yeah, it’s still standing around with a bunch of people, but at least you’re drinking! Also, just buy the whole bottle.
5. Recommendations!
The menu is extensive and filled with consonant laden items that you may or may not be familiar with. Allow us to recommend a few:
- Retsina ($18) — Humans have been making this white wine for the past 2,000 years! It tastes like a pine tree. #ymmv depending on your love of pine-flavored things.
- Greek fries ($2) — Oh just delicious fries that are fried multiple times and covered in magical greek spices. Make sure you get some tzatziki for dipping.
- Dolmades ($1) — Grape leaves stuffed with vegetables, rice, and sunshine.
- Spanakopita ($2.50) — It’s the savory dinner-time version of baklava! Phyllo dough for life.
- Baklava ($2.50) — The sole reason for my existence.
— ∮∮∮ —
Footnotes
- Despite what you may have learned from horror movies, splitting up your party is a great idea…Wait, what’s that? Who’s calling me? THE FESTIVAL IS CALLING ME. IT’S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! ↩
Photo by: sofiagk
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
But Ross, snakes are cold, not hot! :P
Go ahead and melt if you want, the drive thru is an excellent alternative for procuring baklava in the comfort of your air conditioned vehicle.
I loved Greek fest 101…I want go now and taste everything… Lol..thanks again
And for future reference go on Thursday afternoon. You will only be in the food line with hundreds of people instead of thousands. AND if you missed this weekend because you foolishly made other plans there is the mini Greek-Fest, usually at the end of Oct or beginning of Nov with all of the food and much smaller crowds.
I respectfully disagree on sending half your group to hold a table. Because when I’ve waited in line for an hour and now have my food and going to find a place to sit, I’ll see people holding a table empty for an hour while I’m standing there awkwardly with a tray of ready-to-eat food. I think the whole process would work so much better if people waited in line, got their food, sat, ate and moved on so the next people in line can do the same. You know?
Just boycott the thing… I dont know why every individual in Richmond feels obligated to attend the hot, crowded parking lot so they can get some bad tasting wine. I think that it’s overrated, and it has outgrown itself. Maybe the Greek festival organizers could find a way to put up more tables so everyone could find a place to sit, then you don’t have to employ a strategy to find a seat… I just don’t get it.