MARLBOROUGH – You won’t have to take a transatlantic flight to experience the Mediterranean ambiance of Greek food and culture on Labor Day weekend.
The Greek Festival is back with Greek food, music, dancing, exhibits and more.
The 2023 Greek Festival takes place at the Sts. Anargyroi Greek Orthodox Church, 9 Central St., Friday, Sept. 1, 5 to 11 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 2, noon to 11 p.m. and on Sunday, Sept. 3, noon to 11 p.m. The festival will not be open on Monday, Sept. 4, Labor Day.
“The Grecian Festival is more than the Greek pastries and grilled kabobs,” said Nicholas Chacharone, church president and Festival chairman. “It serves as a setting for meeting with friends and family in an atmosphere that features Greek music and traditional Greek dancers in costume providing entertainment.”
Members of the parish start planning in April for the September festival and work together as a team to put this event together.
“This year, in addition to Saturday and Sunday, we decided to hold our Festival Friday night with a light menu,” said Betty Peltekis, a member of the church. “We are not doing Monday this year.”
The menu on Saturday and Sunday includes all the Greek favorites including the very popular lamb shank dinners.
“The lamb shanks are definitely the most popular item on the menu,” said Peltekis. “We have one guy that comes from New Hampshire all three days just to have the 1 1/2 lb., slow cooked, lamb shanks. Last year we sold 900 shanks so we had to add a few dozen more this year.”
For the baked menu items such as baklava, spanakopita and pastitsio, the ingredients included 250 pounds each of flour and sugar, 140 dozen eggs and 144 pounds of butter.
“It takes 20 gallons of simple syrup with honey for the loukoumades, fried dough balls,” said Peltekis.
The festival is a great place for families. For kids there are bouncy houses, sand art and a face painter.
“We love volunteering at the festival with friends from church, and of course, eating the food,” said Nia Benoit. “We go all three days and eat something different every day.”
For Julian, Teddy and Andre Benoit, the sons of Nia and Dan Benoit, they all have their favorite foods. For Julian it is Baklava Sundae, for Teddy it is Gyros and for Andre it is Loukoumades.
On Saturday and Sunday, all the entertainment, and folk dance performance times are on the website. Also, the complete menu and activities can be seen at stsanargyroi.org.
At the Greek Festival, you can use money (there are ATMs), most credit cards and Venmo.
There will be guided church tours on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
A wide selection of beer and wines will be available.
Admission is free.
“How exciting is it to see the community of Marlborough and surrounding towns come to our church to taste our wonderful food, enjoy the Greek folk dancing and Greek music,” stated Chacharone. “We have over 5,000 visitors in three days and most are non-Greeks.”
