Yia Yia Mary's

Yia Yia Mary's (sometimes referred to as Yia Yia Mary's Greek Kitchen and Yia Yia Mary's Mediterranean Kitchen)[1][2] was a Greek restaurant with two locations in Houston, in the U.S. state of Texas. Pappas Restaurants opened the Uptown Houston restaurant in 2004, and a second Yia Yia Mary's began operating at William P. Hobby Airport in 2015. The restaurants served Greek cuisine including seafood and garnered a generally positive reception. Both locations closed in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Description

Yia Yia Mary's was owned by Pappas Restaurants and served Greek cuisine at restaurants in Uptown Houston and William P. Hobby Airport. The Uptown restaurant's interior had a "soaring wood-beamed ceiling and stately stone walls", according to the Houston Press, and featured a wood-burning grill and "omnipresent" televisions.[1]

Reception

In a positive review published by the Houston Chronicle in 2004, The Mystery Diner recommended the lamb chop appetizer and wrote, "if you like Greek food, this is a great place to visit. And if you try the lamb chop appetizers, don't say I didn't warn you. They are maddening, they're so good." They also wrote that "[l]ike a lot of Pappas restaurants, this place is NOISY. At peak rush hour, you can hardly hear yourself think, much less chew."[3] Yia Yia Mary's was nominated in the Best New Restaurant category in the Houston Business Journal Reader's Dining Survey in 2004.[19] In 2006, Robb Walsh of the Houston Press appreciated the lower noise level, which he said was "unbearable" upon opening.[10] He called the sampler dips and the gyro with fries "outstanding" the taramosalata "excellent". Conversely, Walsh criticized the moussaka, the chicken souvlaki sandwich (which he called "too boring to finish"), and the salad with beef souvlaki, which "proved doubly disappointing". He opined, "The fresh-scrubbed college kids who work as servers at Yia Yia Mary's make it possible for xenophobic Houstonians to eat Greek food without having to enter a hive of swarthy foreigners... It may be Greek, but it's still a Pappas Bros. restaurant, after all: a big, efficient, impersonal operation where the sandwiches come in plastic baskets, the bathrooms are always spotless, and you don't have to deal with any colorful personalities."[10]

Yia Yia Mary's was a finalist in the Best Greek category in OutSmart Readers' Choice Awards in 2011,[20] 2015,[21] and 2017.[22] In her Insiders' Guide to Houston (2012), Laura Nathan-Garner recommended the appetizer menu's baked feta, roasted eggplant dip, and spanakopita for a variety of foods on a budget and wrote, "All of the options can feel a little overwhelming at this Pappas-owned restaurant. But just about everything—from the moussaka to the Greek salad to the pita to the souvlaki—is worth a try."[9] In 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die (2015), Mimi Sheraton recommended Yia Yia Mary's for pastitsio and saganaki.[6] In 2015, Katerina Papathanasiou of the Greek Reporter said Yia Yia Mary's "hosts the perfect menu of authentic Greek cuisine" and recommended the "fabulous" appetizers.[8] Katharine Shilcutt included Yia Yia Mary's in Houstonia 2016 list of the ten best eateries in Houston's airports and called the falafel platter "heavenly".[4]

established	2004 (Uptown Houston) 2015 (William P. Hobby Airport)
closed	May 2020 (Hobby Airport) June 2020 (Uptown)
current owner	Pappas Restaurants
food type	Greek seafood
dress code	Casual
street address	4747 San Felipe Street
city	Houston
county	Harris
state	Texas
zip	77056
country	United States
mapframe	yes
mapframe-zoom	13

Description

Menu

History

Reception

See also

External links

References