At Sophia's, celebrating Greek diner built for the next generation

Housemade bread, real avgolemono soup signal the family values that bring customers back

Chicken souvlaki, homefries hard, the iconic Buffalo breakfast done right at Sophia’s.

As restaurant species go, the diner americanus is on the endangered list. 

A generation ago, diners dotted the landscape, at crossroads, in town centers, on blue-collar urban corners.

Drive-throughs and work-from-home drove down customer counts. Costs for real estate leases, employees and ingredients rose steadily. When a restaurant stops making something in-house, it saves on the most expensive ingredient: labor. To survive, many diners and family restaurants increased the amount of prefabricated food on their menus. 

At Sophia’s Breakfast Bar & Grill, founded in 1981, customers will still wait outside for their turn to order their chicken souvlaki breakfast with up to three choices of housemade bread. A decade-plus after Guy Fieri first put Sophia’s on television, the restaurant has moved a block south, into a fully refurbished building that can hold three times as many customers.

It’s still packed. 

Sophia Ananiadis started the restaurant. Her brother Peter runs Nick’s Place on Amherst Street, and her nephew runs Nick’s Place Express on Elmwood Avenue. In Kenmore, her son Sam Doherty decided to make the new Sophia’s a generational asset, so his children might run it one day.