Vasili’s Greek Restaurant

I really really wish I could say I liked it more. My chicken and dolmas were ok. My daughter’s pita and fries were ok. My husband’s gyro was ok. Everything was just… ok. Maybe I am spoiled with good Greek food at home and at Souvlaki on this side of the hill but I was so very disappointed by Vasili’s. Hopefully we can try it again and give it another go. However for just «ok» and then a near $ 40 bill… pretty pricey for just… ok.

Came here after a long day in Santa Cruz. We got seated pretty quickly considering they only had 2 waiting staff. We ordered the meat balls, grilled chicken and lamb shank. Except the lamb, the amount of meat was underwhelming, the meatballs were pretty small and there were only 4, the chicken was on a stick and was about 4 – 5 inches long.
Overall an very average restaurant.

This is the best Greek Restaurant I know of. It has the most delectable tsakiki I’ve ever eaten! Most times I order the lamb shank which is a melt in your mouth tomato and rosemary infused slow braised wonder. Other favorites include the Greek style ribs, or Lemon Chicken. The baklava is a great finish to a wonderful meal. The atmosphere is casual and the service is friendly and reliable.

Come here for lunch. They only offer gyros at that time. It’s sooooo good!!! Comes wrapped and loaded with meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and sauce Its the best gyro I’ve ever had!

We made a mistake and ordered all the things with a lot of lemon incorporated; left feeling very lemon-​y.
Had soup, garlic bread, and a souvlaki plate.
The soup of the day was with chicken, potatoes, and lemon — much like a chicken soup with a kick of lemon. It was good.
Then came the garlic bread, but they should really just change the name to lemon bread. Good crust, good amount of garlic, but so much lemon juice! I just wished the server let us know that their garlic bread is very different from others.
And then, of course the salad dressing had a lot of lemon juice, which would’ve been just fine, if the garlic bread wasn’t so drenched in lemon juice.
Otherwise, great tzatziki, amazing pita bread, and overall good service.
Will just get the gyros next time.

fabulous service and authentic amazing food. Definitely give this place a try if you love Greek or Mediterranean and love the real thing.

Great atmosphere, parked st McDonald’s, friendly staff. Every time someone orders the saganaki the whole place yells OPA! It’s awesome!

I definitely would not eat there ever again. I ordered the roasted lamb gyros and I’ve definitely had better, I mean a lot better. Way too much lettuce, meat had no flavor and way over price.

I’ve had Greek food in many locations across the country and Vasili’s is the best so far. It’s located just off the Pacific Coast Highway, the place is clean, and it has friendly staff. We were there for lunch and we had the roasted lamb and the chicken kabobs. The roasted lamb was very tender and full of flavor! The helpings are large and includes rice pilaf, salad and pita bread. I wholeheartedly endorse this restaurant!

So delicious! I have been coming here since the original owners had it back in the ’90’s. I love it. I am happy to say everything I had during this meal was delicious and just as I remembered. The lamb was only slightly over done, but that’s an oversight that can happen. It was in no way bad or mediocre. I love the potatoes. The feta they have! Their dolmas! The cheese plate! Their greek salad! Everything was wonderful! Can not wait to come back and enjoy next time I’m at home visiting. Opa!

Went today for a family lunch.
The waitress was so unfriendly. Never welcomed us. Slammed food down. Felt like we were putting her out by sitting in her section.
The food. Ahh yes. The food. We always order the tziziki with sourdough cubes. The tziziki lacked the flavor that I have been accustomed to for the past 18 years. At least the sourdough cubes were fresh vs. the usual stale bread they sometimes try to get away with serving.
My chicken souvlaki sandwich… where was the chicken and tzizki? There was tons of lettuce, no seasoning, very little tziziki and bout four pieces of chicken. When Vasili owned this joint, the chicken was busting out of the sandwich, which always had tons of tziziki.
My kids could not eat the fries as there was so much oil, but they did enjoy their chicken skewers. Hubby loved his veggie souvlaki place.
One star for flavor /​texture of chicken (juicy), one star for fresh sourdough and one for the veggie plate.
Please hire servers who are happy to do their job. The restaurant was not even that busy. I’ve been coming here for over 18 years and expect consistency. Thanks

Great local Greek restaurant! I’ve loved Greek food ever since going to the Greek Festival in Santa Cruz, so I’m glad I can get my pita and tzatziki fix here!
AMBIENCE:
You’re transported to one of the many Greek islands once you step inside. The décor is blue and white, with flags and photographs hanging all over the wall.
FOOD:
+ Keftethakia Souvlaki Plate ($ 11.95): Beef and pork meatballs seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil, and Greek spices. You could definitely taste the lemon juice, which was light and stimulates your appetite. Boyfriend can’t stop raving about them! Make sure you put some taramosalata dip (red caviar, mashed potatoes, onions, lemon, olive oil) on it.
Vegetarian Souvlaki Plate ($ 10.95): Basically a sampler plate of different vegetarian appetizers — Greek salad, dolmathes, spanakopita, tiropita, pita & choice of dip.
+ Tzatziki: THE BEST DIP EVER. It’s made of yogurt with cucumber and garlic. It had a strong garlic flavor, which was great! Yogurt was creamy and went great with the pita bread.
+ Pita Bread: ohhhmylord I still dream about this pita! It was warm, seasoned well, and super soft. I’m drooling. Go in just to order pita & dip. Trust me.
+ Greek salad: fresh, and the olives tasted great with the fresh feta cheese.
+ Dolmathes (rice stuffed grape leaves) were yummy and come cold. A nice little appetizer.
— Spanakopita (baked filo dough triangle stuffed with spinach & feta) and Tiropita (baked filo dough triangle stuffed with feta, cream cheese, and eggs) were a little disappointing. The filo wasn’t crispy, actually a little stale. The inside of the tiropita was also a little dry…
SERVICE:
Friendly staff. Our server was nice and told us to ask if we had any questions about the menu.
¹⁰⁄₁₀ would most definitely come back again for lunch or dinner!

My family has been coming here for years.
We like the Lamb shank plate (comes with rice, salad, pita, Tzatziki, and TONS OF LAMB), the roasted chicken is great, chicken skewers are great, beef skewers are great. My dad likes the lemon soup but I just think it’s ok. Gyros are stuffed with meat too. Dolmas are small but tasty.
You get your money’s worth for the food. I love love love the lamb. It’s cooked perfectly all the time.
Definitely stop by if you’re in the area!

Do not come here if you’re used to «Americanized gyros!» This is not what I was expecting! Lemon soup tasted like cabbage soup (minus actual cabbage) with onions and potatoes — not even a lemon flavor. Kids meals are either spaghetti or chicken skewer which my kids didn’t want– so my kids and I just sat there while my husband and oldest daughter had their food. Good thing there’s a McDonald’s across the street. Hubby had the beef gyro which was a hamburger patty that was slightly seasoned with what seemed like a Greek seasoning from a can– again not what we were expecting– sauce was good though. Daughter had a lamb gyro which was pulled lamb pieces slightly seasoned– not the gyro meat in every other Greek restaurant around! She didn’t like it at all, and also joined us at McDonald’s after this meal. This ending up being a $ 52 meal for
2 people which 1 left hungry. Not a good experience !

Food is less than average. Definitely not worth the $ they charge. Fried zucchini was soggy and very oily.
The chicken souvlaki and sheesh kabob tasted identical — tasteless and dry. Veggies served with the entrees were overcooked. Roasted lamb was flavorless and not in the list bit juicy. Service is a tad bit grating and Tzaziki sauce is the only thing that was amazing along with the garlic fries.
Entrees were an average of $ 16 – 18

This was a solid 3 star restaurant. It was average, nothing special. Parking is very hard to find so be aware of that. There was parking on the street but you could only park about 4 cars there. There’s a McDonald’s across but you have to be a customer to park there and the maximum time to park there is 30 minutes.
After trying to find parking for about 10 minutes, I finally found parking.
ATMOSPHERE:
The restaurant itself was a small restaurant. Maximum capacity would probably be around 50 people. There’s both indoor and outdoor seating but they don’t have service if you sit outdoors. You have to order to-​go then take your food and eat outside which I thought was strange. The restaurant had some nice Greek-​themed decorations.
FOOD:
I was kind of surprised they didn’t have more selections but it was fine because I didn’t know any of the entrees. The names of the food were all in Greek so you’d have to read what’s in the food carefully. Most of their food had some sort of cheese.
Chicken gyros: ³⁄₅ — I thought their gyros were huge and there was a lot of lettuce in there so I had to eat it first before I was able to start chowing down and tasting the meat which was tasty at least.
Tiropita: ²⁄₃ — This was cheese and egg baked in some sort of dough. I thought it was really dry. This appetizer came in 2 pieces and it came with lemon so I squeezed it on one piece and first tried the one without lemon juice. It definitely tasted better with lemon juice.
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
It seemed like there was only a couple of servers and I felt like they were understaffed. It took about 15 minutes to get my order, about 20 minutes for food to be served, and took about 15 minutes to get our check.
Overall, I thought the experience was average. After eating all my food, I went to McDonald’s to get some fries because it didn’t fill me up. Would I come back here? Maybe. Would I recommend this to a friend? Well there are better Greek restaurants out there.

So THIS is how the tzatziki is supposed to taste in Greek restaurants…
The food here is extremely fresh and service was amazing. However, the germophobe in me is knocking down one star for cleanliness of this establishment. :)

OMG! I love this place! Went on my birthday and also my first time there.
The food was awesome and our waitress was really cool. Told her it was
my first time there and it was my B-​Day. She suggested a few menu items and I
went for the veggie plate. Other plate ordered was the lamb roast.
The veggie plate was the BOMB! I loved it. I am a huge salad freak and it was delish.
All the little samples of everything, so freakin’ good. Our waitress even brought out a free
desert (baklava) for me to take home. Sooooo going back there again. Tasty feast. Great price.
Parking is not that great though. Only a few spots in the front of the restaurant.
I saw a ton of people parking across the street at McDonald’s and walking over to the restaurant.
Hope they don’t get towed. I was lucky to find a spot on the street. Just a heads up so ya’ll know, hard to find parking.

Excellent! I don’t even care much for Greek food, however, this place was incredible! Quality of food and was superior– worth every penny and we will definitely be returning.
I recommend the flaming cheese: delicious and what a presentation!

This place is good. I wouldn’t say this was one of the best Greek dining experience, but it was moderately good. We both ordered the Soulvaki dinner plate with roasted lamb.
Positives:
–Portion size was generous, we both had plenty of leftovers to take home
–Service was pretty good
–Love the selection of Greek brews
–Lemon chicken soup was really some of the best I’ve had
–Best PITA ever!
Downsides:
–Our appetizer was bleh, we got the spanakopita which not only was tiny, but pretty bland and soggy
–While the portions are generous, I really don’t need that much food and would opt to pay less for a normal size portion — a plate of food was $ 16.95
–The ‘vegetables’ did not do it for me, it tasted like a canned or frozen vegetable mix with tomato sauce
–They didn’t have a Soulvaki (gyro) option on the dinner menu, which was what I wanted!
–Parking is also kinda sucky, but you can luck out on the street — we parked next door at the McDonalds without any hassle
We stopped by because this was a convenient stop for us. We’d definitely come back for lunch, but not something I’d go out of my way to come back to for dinner.