Athens on 4th Avenue

This place is so worth trying. I came in for the first time and was greeted by the owner, who proudly said up front «You’ll be back!» I had the lamb Soulvaki with beans and rice and it was delicious. The meat was cooked perfectly medium rare. Every component was flavorful and I was very full upon finishing that I couldn’t find room for dessert!
The service was attentive and friendly. The owner also came over to make sure everything was satisfying. I will be back.

Overpriced. $ 65 + tip for 3 meals. No appetizer, 2 sodas, one water. Waitress inattentive. Waited an hour for food to come. Food itself was good. Soda glasses hold maybe 10 oz. Sat with empty glasses for 20 mins. Waitress poured water over the top of glass onto table cloth, then just left overfilled glass sitting there not drinkable. Disappointing.

This place never gets old. I get my usual. Lamb shank with potatoes and green beans. The sauce on the lamb is tomatoes based with mystery seasoning. The meat falls off the bone. Also, the lemon pie with walnut crust was the icing on my cake.

I like the ambience of Athens. It’s rarely crowded and at times it feels too quite. Servers are always attentive and friendly. The food is decent, but I am less than impressed with the taste though. I’ve tried Moussaka and gyro, and they were OK. They have a good selection of greek wine. I haven’t found a sweet spot for this place yet. I will come back and try some other dish and wine.

This was a fantastic restaurant. So delicious! Great service. Would definitely go back when we return to Tuscan. One of my favorite meals while here visiting!

Stop what your doing and go eat here. Moussaka was amazing, gf had the eggplant sandwich, awesome too. Cheesecake was one of the best I’ve had. Service is great. Prices are right. Go now!!!

I ordered Lentil soup and the ‘gyro’ platter. The Lentil soup was mediocre, had hardly any taste. The lamb meat in the platter was definitely under-​seasoned, but at least it wasn’t dried out. The platter had the lamb meat, some pita bread and a little salad. The cost was over $ 20. A disgrace! I could have bought the same thing in New York for $ 7.95, and it would have come LOTS faster than the 35 minutes that this place took. Can’t imagine that anything on the menu is worth the money they’re asking. In my opinion Opa is much better, more fun and priced reasonably.

My first experience at Athens on 4^th Avenue was very disappointing.
I was getting off of work and was craving a good gyros sandwich. I checked out Unilocal,Athens on 4^th is the best rated in my area, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The pictures of food all looked good. I noticed that it is more of a sit down place, but I just wanted take out. I ordered the Gyros sandwich and the Dolmathes appetizer.
The Gryos was ***, the meat was decent and cooked nicely. The pita was flaky, which isn’t traditional, but I like it that way anyways. What kinda upset me was that they put one wedge of tomato on the side, which isn’t enough, you basically get one bit with tomato throughout your whole meal. The tzatziki was just yogurt and garlic, I like garlic a lot so I didn’t find that upsetting. Put overall the gyros really didn’t satisfy me craving at all, it just the regular mall food gyros. On the other hand the dolmathes might have been the worst I’ve ever had, * all the way. They were the blandest I’ve ever had and the rice was under cooked and a bit gritty.
I’m guessing by the pictures and other peoples reviews that didn’t order what this place is good for. The staff was friendly, the inside seemed nice and they have a full bar. So honestly, I kinda want to try the place again, the lamb chops look great and I love me some Moussaka. So someday if I ever get over my disappointment is this place and decide to give it another try, I’ll post an update. Until then I give this place **.

I have to give this place 3 stars. Food was great! Atmosphere was nice! Staff was nice! But… it took forever to get our food. I guess they where down a cook or something. Please come, but with caution

I’ve had my ups and my downs with this place, but lately they have been up.
I am a Mediterranean food fan. Having spent a lot of time over the years visiting different countries skirting around this sea. I am a devotee of lamb shanks, any kind of dolma, and goat. Here I have been having the lamb shank, and I have been very happy with it. The meat is dripping off the bone and saturated with a full bodied regional flavor. While the place is super old school in décor, it is quiet enough to have a conservation, and in true Greek style dinner can go on for hours. OPA!

Amazing food and great service. We had the octopus and calamari and it was delicious. Would recommend this restaurant to everyone.

Great food nice price around 20 to 25 a plate for outstanding Greek food. The smell when you come in let’s you know right away they know their spices. We had the house specials, the braised lamb and the sweet meats. Both were excellent. The service was friendly and the atmosphere was relaxing.

Craved dolma really badly and found a place nearest me, which happened to be this and wow was I happily surprised!
* The atmosphere is comfortably formal. This isn’t exactly the kind of place I would go while wearing sweats, but a nice shirt and a skirt felt fine. I bet you could even try pushing a cocktail dress for a fancy date night.
* Our server was friendly and quick. When she described the dolma appetiser and it came to the table with one less, she brought us an extra one.
* The food was truly fabulous! I got both versions of the dolma: the rice-​filled appetiser, as well as the larger meat-​based ones. I’m accustomed to the rice ones, so trying out the meat ones was a fun experience. There were 5 appetiser dolmas that were filled with rice and dill wrapped in grape leaves and covered in olive oil. I could tell the grape leaves were on the fresher side because of their stiffer texture, which I enjoyed against the soft rice. For the main dolma dish there were 4 larger dolmas filled with ground beef and some rice stuffed in grape leaves and covered in a delicious gravy of some sort. Usually I don’t enjoy gravy, however this one seed to be potato based with lemon. When mixed with the meat, it was simply fabulous. On the side there were delicious 3 long potato wedges baked in olive oil with pepper and lemon. My dinner party members both had the gyro appetiser which they seemed throughly pleased with.
* My only complaint is that the prices were a bit high. An appetiser dish of 5 dolma for $ 6.95 seemed a bit high to me, and ~$ 16 for a main dish of 4 dolma was pushing it a bit. I did, however, leave full and satisfied and I will most certainly be coming again.

We took the advice of other Unilocalers and did not order the seafood. Must of been a good call cause the food was wonderful! We started with the sagaknaki and it was delicious! I highly recommend that as your appetizer.
Next, I got the Moussaka (eggplant and beef with béchamel) and I was pretty great. The potatoes come speared and are fried with rosemary (I think) sprinkled on top. My husband ordered the gyro platter. That one was pretty solid. The taziki (sp) sauce was delicious!
Pomegranate martini was delicious and try the Keo beer. It’s from Cyprus and very yummy if you like lagers.

Okay — — honestly the 3 stars is because I ordered what should have been an over-​the-​top amazing shrimp appetizer with halloumi and feta cheeses and spices. Dudes, pre-​cooked shrimp? Honestly? Yea, that didn’t go over to well for me.
HOWEVER, the moussaka was lively and quite quite tasty and we also got the Greek Cheese with Brandy that they set on fire. I DID NOT SHARE.
So there.
Give them a try just steer clear of any seafood dishes as it is clearly not their specialty

Took my family there for relaxing dinner. Service was very good food was very good also. Very friendly staff. Nice Greek wine list.
I would recommend this restraunt to all.
Excellent!

Ordered the dolmathes entrée and they were beyond delicious. Also very impressed with the quality of their olive oil. It tasted extra extra virgin and I tend to be a bit of a snob when it comes to olive oil. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ would recommend, will go again.

Terrible experience. A group of 7 of us sat down on a table and had to grab our own menus because the server forgot about us. Even to get some extra pita bread it took more than 15 minutes. Let me add that there was only one more table in the restaurant besides us. After almost 50 minutes we finally got our food. Gratuity was already added to the bill and on top of that, after I pay with cash the waitress asks me if I want my change back. Paid $ 19 for an average gyro plate.

Quiet, intimate atmosphere with friendly service. And the best spanakopita I’ve ever had! Tender, flaky crust and delicious filling. My wife loved the gyro plate. Went back a second time and had the grape leaves. Best ever!.My wife had the sea bass, which she pronounced «fabulous.»

This was a pleasant surprise. My dining compatriot had told me this place was awful and not worth the price, but much to his shock we ate here anyways. The pros: gyro pita pizza for an app was delicious. Cheese was melted properly, with a nice brown crisp. My friend had octopus, which I tried a bit of and liked, and I had the moussaka with green beans. My entrée was delicious and huge for $ 16.
The cons: We sat at the bar area. It was crooked and very dusty. Does not appear they’ve paid that much attention to cleaning the area recently. They also don’t use fresh juices for any cocktails (FYI it’s cheaper to squeeze your own juice everyday, make your own simple syrup, or sweet and sour mix). This gives off a cheap vibe and dilutes the taste of the spirit. Their liquor selection is minimal and reminds me of a college kids bar in a fraternity house. And the dark haired male bartender used a plastic sword (you know, like something you’d find in a dessert at Peter Piper Pizza) for my olive in my martini (which didn’t taste terrible even though it was on the rocks and not in a martini glass because they «ran out»). Also, they should store their vermouth better.
Overall, I will probably return. I’d hope they could improve their bar program, that would be a great addition to their food.

Our first visit to Fourth Street at night. Big basketball game, so parking was a little challenging, but the service was great, food was excellent. We had gyro appetizers as our main dish. Comes with a nice salad on the plate and a generous helping of gyro meat, feta, tzatziki and a pita.

I’m a Mediterranean food nut, and this place was authentic and amazing! Got the moussaka and pastitsio lunch specials, which come with a huge salad and drink… for $ 11.95! A steal for the amount of food you get! Both were delicious! Would definitely come back!
One caution… came in on a Saturday at 12:30pm for lunch and they had one server. We were lucky and beat the rush, but other tables took longer. Maybe it was a one day fluke, but service could be slow if busy.

This was the most uneven meal I’ve ever had in my life, ranging from surprisingly excellent to astonishingly bad.
There is very high quality olive oil on table and some decent bread comes out when you sit down. We started with saganaki. Yum! Everyone likes flaming cheese, and this one was quite good, perfect amount of lemon, not too greasy or runny. We ate it all up. Then we shared a big bowl avgolemono, which was also delicious, creamy with tender bits of white meat chicken in it.
Husband enjoyed a lovely hunk of roasted lamb. There were a couple tougher bites but most of it just fell off the bone. We didn’t even need a knife. Stepson had something that was a huge square of meat, cheese, and noodles all cooked together, which he thought was amazing. Stepdaughter had a pita pizza, which did not impress me, but she was satisfied, so that was good.
I ordered off the special list: mussels in marinara sauce. Normally, I love mussels. When the waitress set them down in front of me, I almost gagged. The smell emanating from this dish was past fishy. It reminded me more of my stepdaughter’s feet before we convinced her she needed to wear socks with gym shoes. I was confused at how bad it was. Did the waitress not notice? Did the chef? My stepdaughter was grossed out by the smell and it wasn’t even in front of her.
Perhaps, I thought, good mussels are supposed to smell like fishy feet and I have simply never had good mussels. Or this is the smell of mussels marinara and I have only ever eaten them in a white wine reduction. I tried to eat, since I was hungry and had faith in the chef, but I was grossing myself out forcing these tasteless little hunks of flesh into my face. I turned my attention to the accompanying salad, but could not enjoy it with the olfactory assault of the stinky mussels pounding into my brain. Hubby had to flag the waitress down so I could ask her to please take the mussels far far away.
«I hate to complain,» says I, «but these mussels smell disgusting and they don’t taste very good.»
Apologetically, she says, «Are they too fishy?»
This leaves me to wonder if they knew very well that the mussels were bad. I would have much preferred if she came out right away and said they were out of mussels instead of serving something nasty and hoping the customer wouldn’t notice.
She offered to bring me more food but my husband said he wasn’t that hungry and we shared the lamb. They took the mussels off the bill (I made sure to remind my husband to tip on what the bill would have been) but the whole experience makes me sad. I should have given Athens 4 or 5 stars. I should have ordered the chicken.
Really, it’s a good restaurant, but on tonight’s visit, our overall experience was a 3, and my entrée was a negative 1.
ETA: Contact by owner 11/​13, received apologies for horrible mussels and assurance that the restaurant would be changing its supplier.

Mediterranean has been my craving since I returned from Greece a couple months ago, so I’ve been trying as many different restaurants as I can. Athens on 4^th did not impress me much.
First, the comments about it being awkwardly silent in the building are accurate. There is no kind of ambiance music, and it just seems too quiet. I ordered the Moussaka. The Greek salad it came with was not overly impressive, and the Moussaka I personally felt lacked any sort of flavor, which is definitely strange for normally flavorful Mediterranean cuisine. I would probably give it another chance, but I was not impressed by this restaurant.

We came, we saw, we waited. and waited. and waited 10 minutes after that, and our waters were never brought to us.
So then. we left.
I was really disappointed; I love Greek food and I was looking forward to trying Athens on 4^th.
They weren’t busy at all. We walked inside and it was too hot, so we asked the hostess if we could sit outside. She obliged and led us to a table on the small patio. It would have been a perfect lunch. Unfortunately, after we asked for a couple of waters, we never saw her again.