Pasadena Produce & Deli — Local services in South Pasadena

Greek food is comfort food for a lot of folks and I was in a Greek food mood! After a quick online restaurant search, I decided on trying Spiro's. I was flying solo, minus my side-kick Fab Fiancée. Now, that's amazing in itself, right?

At Spiro's, you walk in and proceed to a counter, grab a menu, place your order and then go find a table. Fair enough. The woman taking orders was very pleasant and kind.

They have a full selection of drinks in a cooler, plus typical soda fountain drinks with refills. Also, beer and wine. I got a fountain drink and settled in at a small table.

It wasn't a very long wait until a nice young lady brought my meal out to me. I ordered a large Greek salad plus an order of Dolmas or stuffed grape leaves with meat. More on the Dolmas in a moment.

The salad was quite large, I was wishing I'd only ordered a small, but I figured I could get a to-go box. Okay, so how was the salad? To some Greek purists, a true 'Greek' salad has NO LETTUCE. In that configuration, it may be called Horiatiki. And Spiro's has that available on their menu, listed simply as the Original Greek salad. I opted for mine WITH LETTUCE, called the Greek Salad on their menu. My salad came with Iceberg lettuce. There was plenty of it, that's not the problem. To me, and again, a lot of purists, the only lettuce that should be used in a Greek salad is Romaine. Iceberg has very little taste or nutrient value, whereas Romaine pairs nicely with the other ingredients in the salad plus the dressing. I absolutely prefer Romaine in a Greek salad. Therefore, I was not overwhelmed with my salad. I will say, however, that their Greek dressing was very good, with a lot of flavor and balance.

Now, back to the Dolmas. I love the organic earthiness of taking grape leaves and wrapping them around rice and meat. For just $2.99, I received a plate of six wonderfully juicy and plump, delicious Dolmas. I thoroughly enjoyed each flavorful bite!

So, where does all this put Spiro's in review terms? I liked that they have a full deli/store area in part of the building. I LOVED the Dolmas. The Greek salad was just okay for me due to the type of lettuce used. My only real problem?

The tables were less than clean. When I found my table, it was food-soiled, a newspaper on it, and more papers on one of the chairs. I looked around and the other available tables were food-soiled as well. I grabbed a few napkins, wet them and cleaned my own table. I saw several other diners do the same. A few patrons played musical tables until they found one clean enough for their liking. During my visit, I saw NO ONE come out to wipe the tables clean. That's a shame, because the remainder of the restaurant looked to be pretty clean and tidy. (In hindsight, I should have mentioned this to someone, but they were pretty busy, and I really should not have to mention such a basic restaurant procedure).

In closing, a good Greek experience to be had, but there are some areas for...

I believe every place of business is worth a second chance, but I will not be going back here. What I am going to write is just what happened to me, no opinions given.

Our order, one gyro, one reuben, one small greek salad, one order of fries, and two bottles of water was completed and charged to my card at 4:33pm. My card was charged $29.03 plus I left an additional $5 for the tip for a total of $34.03. The restaurant only had two other patrons at this time for dine in.

At 5pm, 27 minutes later, I asked where our order was. The lady said it was almost ready and apologized because some people were new in the kitchen. Three of our items, the gyro, the fries, and the greek salad had already been sitting in the window for quite some time. They were not offered to us while we continued to wait for the reuben.

At 5:10pm I went up again to cancel our order and start the refund. 37 minutes of wait time with no food and the kitchen staff didn't understand why I wanted a refund. The store did not know how to do a refund back to the card so they gave me $25 and some change back in cash. I explained to them, and showed them the charge from my bank account, that the initial charge was for $29.03 plus I tipped an additional $5 that was not yet reflecting on the pending charge. I was given an additional $3 back in cash for the two bottled waters that were returned unopened. So I received back a total of $28 and change for my $34.03 charge. 37 minutes of waiting for two sandwiches a salad and fries that never came and being shorted roughly $6 from the refund.

They did nothing to deserve a second...

I've been going to Spiros for 20 years. We order catering, take out for our businesses and our clients. As such, we brought in lunch for our entire office staff today, we ordered, in addition to a few other entrees, a large greek salad to share among the staff, but no dressing. The employee who answered the phone said I could come back in for the dressing. Well it does not work quite that way when you place a large order for your staff during a busy work day. We have a certain time slot to eat lunch between our own clients and meetings. The employee said, well I could credit you $.50......fifty cents? Its not quite a salad without an essential ingredient, the dressing. I said since we are throwing it away maybe you could credit me a salad the next time I came in? His response....."nope." Talk about a kick in the teeth. Less about dressing and more about the attitude and appreciation for your customers. We gave a good tip on the take...