GUIDE · FAMILY & HISTORY
Forty Years at the Counter: The Voulgaridis Family and Reading Terminal Market
A market that outlived the railway that built it, a stall that changed hands in 1984, and a family that has opened the same counter every morning since. Told by the second generation.
Olympia Gyro is a family-owned Greek counter inside Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia. The stall opened in the market in 1982 under a prior operator; George and Despina Voulgaridis bought it in 1984, and their son Athens runs it today. This is how it got here, and who is behind the counter.
Most of our guides answer a practical question: what to order, where to sit, how far the walk is from the Convention Center. This one answers the question that usually comes after those, from someone standing at the counter with a sandwich in hand: how long have you been here? The honest answer takes a few dates and three names, and it starts before us.
The market before us
We are tenants in a building with a longer story than ours, so the building goes ahead of us. According to the market’s own history page, the Reading Terminal Market opened for business on February 22, 1893, and in 1985 the train shed above the market fell silent when the city’s commuter-rail system was rerouted to bypass the terminal. The market’s timeline adds that the Pennsylvania Convention Center bought the Reading Terminal Market in 1990, and that in 1993 the adjacent Pennsylvania Convention Center opened and brought new customers to the market. Today the history page counts more than 75 independent small businesses under that roof.
That is the market’s history, and the market tells it well, so we leave the rest of it to them. What matters for our story is the shape of it: a market built for a railway, still open after the trains stopped coming, and still filling up at lunch when a Greek couple bought a gyro stall inside it. If you are new to the building, our guide to the market covers the counters, the seating and how to move through it on a busy day. The rest of this post is about one of those counters.
1982 and 1984: a stall changes hands
Two dates carry this story, and we keep them apart on purpose. 1982 is the stall: a gyro counter opened in Reading Terminal Market that year under a prior operator, and it had been trading for two years when we came to it. 1984 is the family: George and Despina Voulgaridis, Greek immigrants, bought the stall that year, and the Voulgaridis family has run it every day since. Family-owned since 1984, at the market from 1982, is the shape of it, and every page on this site keeps those two years in that order.
George and Despina emigrated from Prosotsani, a village just outside Drama, in northern Greece. That is as far back as this post goes, because its subject is what happened at the counter, not before it. What they bought in 1984 was a working stall. What they did with it was open it the next morning, and the morning after that, and they have not stopped. There is no founding legend to add to that. The counter has been staffed by the same family for more than forty years, and the way it is staffed has changed less than you might think.
Our story, in short, is on the About page, which is where we point anyone who wants the facts in one place. This post is the longer telling of the same facts, and it does not contradict that page in any date or name.
Two names, one counter
Anyone who ate here before 2012 knew the stall under a different name. For thirty years, from 1982 to 2012, the stall was called Olympic Gyro; in 2012 the United States Olympic Committee required the name to change, because the word Olympic is legally protected, and the business became Olympia Gyro. That is the whole of the rename, and it is the last time the old name appears in this post.
The name on the sign changed. Nothing behind the sign did: the same counter in the same unit, the same spit at the front, the same family carving off it, and the same trays of baklava and spanakopita made in the morning. If you hear someone who has been coming for decades use a name that does not match the sign, they are talking about this counter, and the sandwich they are describing is the one we still make.
Despina’s mornings
Despina Voulgaridis still makes the baklava and the spanakopita from scratch every morning. That sentence is in the present tense on purpose. It has been true since the eighties and it is true today, and it is the part of the business that has changed the least. The trays are made in the morning, before the lunch crowd, so that what goes into the case is that day’s. There is no method in this post, because what goes into a tray of baklava has a post of its own, and the method is Despina’s to describe.
What you see at the counter is the result. On the autumn 2026 menu a square of Mama’s Spanakopita is $6.50 and a piece of baklava is $4.25, both from the morning’s trays. Despina’s baklava and spanakopita on the menu sit alongside the gyros and the platters, and they are the two items on the board that have been made by the same pair of hands since the eighties. If you come at lunch, you see what is left of the morning’s work, and that is the honest way to judge it.
The second generation
I am Athens Voulgaridis, George and Despina’s son, and the second-generation owner of the counter. Roula is part of the family and the business too. My day starts when the market opens at 8:00 AM. Two cones turn on the spits from the moment we open, one beef and lamb and one chicken, and a gyro is carved off when you order rather than before. If you want to know what is on those cones and how the carving works, we explain the spit in a post of its own.
The rest of the day is questions. What is on the spit. Which one is vegetarian. How far is it to the Convention Center. Where can we sit. Those questions, asked at the counter every day, are why the rest of our guides exist: each one is an answer we were already giving out loud, written down so that it reaches people before they get here. Writing them is a second-generation job. My parents opened the counter every morning and answered whatever was asked. I open it, answer, and then write the answer down.
Nothing about the counter depends on me in particular. It depends on the spit being carved to order, the trays being made in the morning, and the family being there, which are the three things that have held since 1984.
The market’s award years
One more set of dates, and they are the market’s, not ours. USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice named Reading Terminal Market the Best Public Market in America in 2021, in 2022 and again in 2026; the 2026 result was announced on April 22, 2026, after public voting that ran from March 16 to April 13, according to the market’s announcement and NBC10’s report. We are one counter among more than 75 businesses in the building, and the award belongs to all of them together and to the people who run the market.
What it means from where we stand is simpler. The building we have worked in for more than forty years is one that people go out of their way to visit, and our counter is one of the stops. That is a good position to be in, and it is the market’s doing.
Come and find us at the spit
If you have read this far, come and say hello. The family is usually at the counter, and the spit is at the front of it, in plain view. We are at 1136 Arch Street, Unit 463, inside Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Our address and a map are on the contact page, along with the phone number if you would rather call ahead: 215-629-9775. There is no more to the story than what is above: a stall from 1982, a family from 1984, one name change in 2012, and the same counter opened every morning since. Find us at the spit, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, every day.
Athens Voulgaridis
Athens is the second-generation owner of Olympia Gyro at Reading Terminal Market. The Voulgaridis family has run the counter since 1984.