Zaro's Cafe Of Long Island 'Definitely' Struggling: Manager

HUNTINGTON STATION, NY — Zaro's Cafe of Huntington Station is a year shy of celebrating its 30th anniversary. The longevity of the Greek restaurant, at 135 W. Jericho Turnpike, does not mean it is immune to hardships like the coronavirus pandemic and inflation, though.

Zaro's Cafe was opened in August 1993 by the Zarou family. Since then, the key to the cafe's success boils down to one word: "consistency."

"Putting love into the food and keeping the consistency," Edmund Zarou, manager of the cafe, told Patch. "Never wavering away from it. Always maintaining that consistency we’ve had from Day 1. Loyal customers coming up on 30 years have reassured us that we always maintain that level of consistency in our food.”

Zarou, 29, has been alive for as long as his family restaurant. Zaro's Cafe offers traditional Greek gyros and souvlaki, as well as heros, pasta, personal pizzas, appetizers, and more.

Since 2020, he has been part of a team that has dealt with two back-to-back massive hurdles: the coronavirus outbreak and the ongoing inflation.

Zaro's Cafe was a full-service restaurant before the pandemic hit. The Zarous had to transition to take-out, keeping their loyal customers. The dining room has since reopened on Friday and Saturday nights to offer table service.

“Obviously COVID was a huge hurdle, and we still haven’t fully overcome it yet," Zarou said. "We’re still in it. It’s a little harder now, believe it or not, than it was when it first hit."

With COVID-19, Zarou said the adjustments were shifting to takeout and ensuring the business was in compliance with all the state mandates. While the restaurant took a hit as people were reluctant to go out to eat for fear of contracting the coronavirus, Zarou said the cafe managed to avoid taking too big of a hit.

The biggest hurdle right now? Inflation.

"The food costs are up crazy percentages," Zarou said. "It’s hard to tell you a straight number."

Food prices going "through the roof" has been difficult to combat, Zarou said.

"You try not to raise your prices too much where a family can’t afford to come and eat, but at the end of the day, it’s a business, and if you have margins that you need to meet, there’s no choice."

Zaro's Cafe is "definitely" struggling because of inflation, food shortages, and scarcity of products, Zarou said.

A percentage could not be put on the possibility of Zaro's Cafe going out of business, but Zarou said he is scared.

"I definitely am afraid. There are so many factors. There are so many pieces of this puzzle. A restaurant has so many moving parts. It’s really really hard to maintain everything. I’m definitely afraid, especially if there’s going to be a recession, or this wave continues of shortages and price increases. It’s going to be very difficult to maintain a functioning business, to meet the margins you have to meet in order to cover your costs as a business."

Zarou said his family is as scared as everyone else currently is as the United States inflation rate is at 9.1 percent — the highest since November 1981, according to Trading Economics.

"Just because we’re a business and we’ve been around for a while doesn't make us immune to these hardships and things that are going on," Zarou said. "It’s like a normal family. If you go to the store; I have a family, we shop for ourselves at our house. Everything is up. We go, we buy. It’s up. We’re just as scared as a normal family would be with their own finances."

As a small Greek cafe, Zaro's does not have a ton of investors and is not backed by shareholders' money.

"We’re just normal people trying to maintain our small, really good business, and it’s definitely scary," Zarou said.

Zarou urged the Huntington community to capitalize on the specials that Zaro's Cafe offers. The restaurant is offering family meal deals for families of four to six, as well as two for $15 parmesan heros on Wednesdays and two for $15 gyros on Thursdays.

"Hang in there and take advantage of the specials Zaro’s is offering, because if somebody is looking to save some money, which is understandable, we can help, because you get the same quality at a good, affordable price, and I think everybody is happy at that point," Zarou said.

Between factors like COVID-19 and inflation, Zarou said small businesses should maintain their consistency no matter what.

"Any business has opportunities to maybe make a worse product. Maybe they’ll put out something less than or not as good as they did before to cut corners. But we’ve never done that, and we never will do that. I think that’s the lesson: Maintain consistency no matter what’s going on. Because at the end of the day, we have customers, and we want to appreciate them and show them that we’re not going to roll over and we'll take what’s thrown at us. We’re going to push through it and continue to produce a good product no matter what the condition of the environment around us is, where we are as a country or an economy. We’re going to maintain a consistent product no matter what.”

Zaro's Cafe can be called at 631-271-4400. People can follow Zaro's Cafe on Instagram to stay up to date on specials.

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