Right now, a Greek outdoor patio under sunny blue skies sounds just about right.
White stucco and short sleeves.
Town and Country Steak and Seafood House owner Steve Koussiouris is very familiar with that scene.
But he has transformed part of his longtime Dunlop Street West eatery into something... a little more Canadian.
Customers can enjoy outdoor fine dining as well as a pre- or post-dinner skate around a rink that doubles as T&C’s beautiful patio in the warmer months.
The idea of giving customers a chance to lace ’em up to burn off some of that filet mignon and lobster came to Koussiouris in the fall.
“I heard the weatherman was calling for a very cold, hard winter,” he tells BarrieToday. “When we were gathering up all the patio furniture, I was looking at the space we made for it next to the covered porch area and I thought, ‘We could make this into a rink’.
“That’s when the gears started turning. I’d never built an ice rink before but I thought I could figure it out.”
He thought right.
The 35-by-40-foot rink, made with a custom liner complete with one-foot tall boards around the perimeter, is illuminated by strings of lights and is just a step or two from the restaurant’s porch dining area, located in another building that faces onto Mary Street.
Koussiouris describes the fare as comfort food — steak, seafood, ribs, etc. — adding that a special item is familiar to many clients.
“My dad, John, developed the recipe for the Greek salad and I continue it,” he says. “We bottle and jar the recipe as well. A lot of our customers take it home and have been for years and years.”
Other favourites include the saganaki — flambéd cheese.
The outdoor space still seems cozy despite the recent bone-numbing cold of the past few days.
“I decided to build the ice rink more as a novelty,” Koussiouris says. “It’s winter — we should embrace it as Canadians. We should be outdoors and enjoying it.”
Even if sliding on the ice isn’t your thing, there’s still something cool about noshing on great food outside. The mostly enclosed balcony, heat lamps and blankets come in hand when it’s so nippy.
But if he had his druthers, the restaurateur would serve his creations under the sky more often. Being of Greek descent, 90 per cent of the dining there is outdoors where they have a much better climate for it, he says.
Unlike the Great White North.
“Over the years, fine dining and steak houses weren’t really an outdoor-patio kind of thing,” says Koussiouris, adding at one time he never even wanted to build a patio.
“I wanted to build an outdoor restaurant, meaning whatever food you’re getting inside, you’re getting outside."
Shouldn’t he be in California then?
“No, we’re Canadian. We can suck it up and enjoy it,” Koussiouris says with a laugh. “Dress for it. We’ve got the heaters, we’ve got the technology.
“It’s not like we’re going to do this every day and forever. But once in a while, it creates an event. Every now and then we all need a bit of adventure.”
