After My Big Fat Greek Wedding came out in 2002, I thought Nia Vardalos was a comedic genious.

Throw in the fact that she’s also from Winnipeg (my home town)…and I’m a fan.

What does that have to do with this restaurant, you ask? Not much, to be honest.

But, if you’ve seen it, you’ll appreciate the Windex references that are made as the all-purpose healing solution. Well let me tell you something my friends, there isn’t enough Windex in the world that you could spray, splash, sprinkle, soak, or submerge Stephos Greek Taverna with here in Vancouver!

Why do I sound bitter? A couple of things; actually two things in particular:

1) the line-up - if you’ve ever driven past this greek restaurant icon at 1124 Davie Street, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say ‘line-up’.

I’m not talking about your ordinary, everyday, vanilla, run-of-the-mill, average, normal, nothing-to-see-here, kind of line-up, either….

Instead, we’re talking Harry Potter opening night/Michael Jackson Thriller (Note: RIP - added, July 2009) album release party/Vancouver Canucks playoff game bathroom entrance kinda line-up! This is big league stuff (not fun); and

2) the service  - to be blunt, it needs work.

My most recent visit was a few weeks ago and it involved a couple of truly memorable service moments that I’d like to share (do with them what you will):

• of course, the legendary line-up (I mean really, who could resist NOT lining up?)

• waiting for our server longer than usual (you’d think that a place that lines up should carry enough servers to deal with the throngs of souvlaki-seekers who swarm this place)

• placing our order

• waiting for our order

• waiting some more for our order

• having our server come back to us to announce that he had forgotten one of our four orders (don’t worry, he assured us that he was in-good with one of the cooks…what does THAT mean?)

• surprisingly the food came out rather quickly (at this point, I swear he stole it off someone else’s table)

• we eat

• we pay

• we leave

• we wonder why we went

Now don’t confuse things here…I’m not thrashing Stepho’s food, it’s actually pretty good and the portions are huge (Fred Flinstone ribs-on-the-side-of-his-car-in-the-opening-credits huge).

Taking all of this in, though, I think there are better options out there for my drakma/Euro/dollar, though - Maria’s (in Kitsilano or the West End) and Taki’s (virtually next door to Stepho’s!) to name but a few.

So if you’re hungry, great! Check out Stephos.

Keep one thing in mind though, you’re going to get a little hungrier once you get there.

darren