Eleni’s Kitchen + Bar in Yarraville will be reopening next week on November 13 following a fire that broke out at the restaurant in June.
The fire broke out near the kitchen and destroyed the front of the establishment, eventually spreading to the neighbouring Jimmy’s Deli, owned by the family.
Eleftheria Amanatidis, who operates the popular Greek restaurant along with her sister Eleni, told Neos Kosmos that they are looking forward to reopening after being closed for months.
“We’re definitely looking forward to reopening… seeing our regular customers come back, dine with us and hopefully seeing a lot of new faces as well, because it seems that since we’ve posted that we’re reopening, we’ve gotten quite a big social media outreach,” Eleftheria said.
The fire caused extensive damage and burned everything downstairs, except for a photo of her great-grandfather, Father Antonis Amanatidis.
Something the family believe was divine intervention.
Upstairs in the second dining area, it was mostly untouched, but needed to be renovated nonetheless because of soot damage from the smoke.
Eleftheria said from a business standpoint, they’re obviously very keen to open up but are more so they can engage again with the community.
“We’re looking forward to that because the love and support we received since the fire happened was just huge and something that was totally sort of unexpected,” she said.
“The amount of support we received, we’re really thankful that we’ve got such a big community support base, which was beautiful.
“So definitely looking forward to giving back and seeing our community again and going back to routine, just like everything was before.”
