Souvlaki House — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

We’re visiting Ithaca and had a craving for Greek food, so we stopped into Souvlaki House around 4:40 PM to order some dinner for take-out.

We walked into an empty restaurant (no surprise given the COVID-19 pandemic) and were promptly greeted. We asked to place a to-go order and were immediately offered a menu to browse.

The menu is extensive and features Greek and Italian food.

We ordered two gyros, a toasted ravioli appetizer, and two orders of baklava. We then explored Collegetown on foot. 15 minutes later we returned, and our food was ready!

We brought it back to our hotel and dug right in. The gyros? Fantastic! They featured a VERY generous amount of lettuce, tomatoes, taziki sauce, and gyro meat. We both opted to order them sans onions. I added feta for $1 additional.

Let me start by saying they gave me a WONDERFUL amount of feta for my $1! I’m used to restaurants being very skimpy with the feta. This place was not! The pita was tasty, and we also like the gyro meat. All ingredients tasted fresh!

My fiancé said the toasted ravioli was average. We weren’t expecting that to be a show-stopper anyways. The baklava?! Oh my! Amazing! They are HUGE! They tasted homemade whereas most places we order from back in PA they taste frozen and mass-produced.

We will definitely return when we visit Ithaca again! Thanks for a...

The only good thing about this restaurant is the large portion sizes but you do pay a hefty price for the hefty meal.

I went on a Friday afternoon at around 3:00 pm. Experienced long wait times for drinks and the appetizers I ordered. I got my large order of a bland Seafood Alfredo pasta (if you even want to call it seafood when there were like 2 shrimps and imitation crab) after finishing a poorly made salad.

Not only am I a college student who is struggling financially, I didn't appreciate the service nor the food. I paid for my meal and gave a poor tip. Moments later, as I was leaving the restaurant, a worker called me out complaining about my poor tip. Before allowing me to explain myself (which I definitely don't need to do), the worker goes on explaining to me that they "kill themselves working so hard". The worker calls me out in front of the restaurant, speaking loudly, instead of acting professionally and bringing her complaint to me (a customer) in private.

Horrible experience, never returning...

Ah, Souvlaki House. Picture it. Ithaca, 1992. A group of freshmen stumble in after a night of orientation parties for a late night snack. One, a simple country boy from Connecticut, orders an omelet. In his state, he’s more amused than revolted to find a large black cricket tucked into the cheesy molten delight. After hailing a server, the swarthy chef emerges from the kitchen and delivers, in a perfect Seinfeldian accent, the accusation, “You put that there! My omelettes do not come with crickets! How dare you insult my kitchen?” My perfectly sincere and innocent shock at the accusation must have been convincing enough to get a replacement or freebie—I forget which—but the incident lives on in my fondest memories of my first week on the Hill. 4 stars for atmosphere, 2 stars for the accusation (would have been one but the delivery was so pitch perfect that it must have been part of the schtick). Will have to try it...