Bites Nearby: Brandon’s Sophia’s Cafe Serves Greek and American Fare Fast for Lunch and Suited To Taste

At Sophia’s Café, co-owner Chris Kamelaris says the food is offered up fast but not to confuse it with fast food.

“We’re a mom and pop café,” he said. “We are something for the local workers who have 30-minute lunches."

Added Kamelaris: "You place the order, and we rock it out!”

Nestled in a small plaza on Oakfield Drive, this low-key eatery serves up a mix of Greek and American fare. It’s family owned and operated. If famished customers are looking for chain eateries with rigid menus, stick to Route 60. Here, the staff is friendly and substitutions or special requests are honored without a fuss.

“You can make your own adjustment unlike at a corporate store,” Kamelaris said. “You can go off-menu and it won’t take 20 minutes to get an, ‘Okay' from a manager for that.”

Available for catering, dine-in or take-out, this breakfast- and lunch-only café has a signature Greek omelette, Greek salads, deli sandwiches, half-pound hamburgers, subs and wraps, baklava for dessert and gyros -- about 120 of which are sold each week.

The gyro meat is a lamb-beef combination that is cut from the cone, although there is a leaner chicken option also. It comes with made-from-scratch tzatziki sauce.

“Nobody wants to take the time to make that sauce but we do,” Kamelaris said of the yogurt- and-cucumber dressing.

Sophia's also includes a soup and sandwich combo of the day. Customer Joe Cosimano is new to the Sophia’s experience but is on his way to becoming a regular.

“That’s about the best pasta fagioli I had in a long time!” he told worker Kimberly Hirschey.

Cosimano, of Brandon, said he liked how he could tell the item was made from scratch with “a nice flavor and plenty of vegetables.” The laid-back café atmosphere that offers free Wi-Fi was appealing as well.

“It’s very cozy,” he said.

Hirschey, who works the counter and the phones, said there is not one type of customer that comes into Sophia’s.

“We get business people, people from doctor’s offices [and] older folks, too, and just all kinds of people actually,” she said. “It’s unique here because it’s a family owned cafe. It has recipes that have come from [the Mediterranean region].”

Kamelaris, who opened the eatery with sister Sophia Irvin one year ago, has spent many years in the restaurant industry, including everything from managing a Bennigan’s and beyond. He also comes from a diner-owning family.

“I saw all the in’s and out’s of the industry,” said Kamelaris, whose folks moved from New Jersey to the Plant City area when he was a teen.

Kamelaris would talk more about it his background, but it is 10:30 a.m. on a recent Wednesday and kitchen prep work beckons. The lunch crowd will be here soon enough, after all.

No doubt most will be familiar faces.

“Ninety percent are regulars, people that we see daily,” Kamelaris said. 

Sophia’s Cafe is open for breakfast and lunch, Monday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Don’t let the limited parking at the cafe’s entrance throw you off; a sign pointing to the back of the shopping plaza leads to a lot with ample room for parking.

Sophia’s Cafe, at 526 Oakfied Drive, is in the Oakfield Plaza at the intersection of Oakfield and Corner drives, across the street from Tower Diagnostic Center of Brandon.