Laikon is closing tomorrow, Sunday January 29, 2012. I'm told it is to be torn down to put in a walkway to a parking lot behind. Last of the old school, real Greektown Greek resataurants. Hellas: perfectly good building torn down to make way for an empty gravel lot [[not even a parking lot!). Cyprus: now a liquor/lotto/cigarettes/head shop [[we really need more of those). Grecian Gardens: long gone, now a parking lot. The International [[long time ago). And others I can't even remember. Still have Pegasus and New Parthenon, but they just don't have the charm of the old places.
What was once a unique and wonderful ethnic enclave is now basically a cheap tourist trap filled with liquors stores, sports bars and burger joints. And IMO it's the Greektown merchants themselves, or some of them, who are to blame. No strategic vision of the historic values that made Greektown Greektown, just short sighted self interest, and spiteful infighting.
And what the hell are they doing with the Plaka building? A Cheesecake Factory?
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