QuickTake:
After 37 years on Willamette Street, the Greek restaurant is moving to 5th Street Public Market. The final night at its current location will be Sept. 28, with reopening planned for early October.
After 37 years on Willamette Street in downtown Eugene, Poppi’s Anatolia restaurant is preparing to move to a much larger space at 5th Street Public Market this fall.
The owners of Poppi’s signed a lease Aug. 6 for the former Pho King space. Before that, the location housed Northwest Burgers and, for a decade before that, Sushi Pure. The new location expands Poppi’s square footage from 1,200 in their current restaurant to 3,200, with a significantly larger kitchen.
“The volume that we’re doing right now is almost unattainable with the kitchen that we have,” said Poppi’s co-owner Shanti Walling. “Some people have kitchens in their home that are bigger than what we have to work with.”
The restaurant will finally have a walk-in cooler, too, a long-desired and necessary feature they’ve had to do without for decades. Actors Cabaret of Eugene, a dinner theater next door, has been allowing Poppi’s to use a shelf in its own walk-in.
While Poppi’s current location has a small bar, the new space will allow for a greatly expanded full-service bar and menu of craft cocktails and seasonal drinks. The restaurant plans to feature a Portland-made gin created by Anna Mantheakis, a distiller who is a great-niece of Poppi’s founder, Poppi Cottam.
-
The new location’s expanded bar will allow for more seasonal cocktails such as this peach old fashioned. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield -
Moussaka and a peach old fashioned. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield -
Poppi’s is moving to a new location and returning to an all-Greek menu with specialties such as artichoke hearts, melitzanosalata (eggplant dip), olives, pita and skordalia (potatoes with garlic, lemon and walnuts). Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield -
Saganaki, or fried cheese with olive oil and lemon, is a favorite dish from Poppi’s. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
The larger dining room in the 5th Street Public Market space will accommodate special events and large parties. The owners also envision a “Greek family-style table where folks get to sit together in community if they want that,” when the restaurant is on a wait list.
This isn’t the first announcement of change for the popular restaurant. On July 23, the restaurant announced it was streamlining its menu to focus exclusively on Greek cuisine rather than a combination of Greek and Indian.
The restaurant plans to refresh its logo for the move. And a longer-term vision of importing specialty items from Greece — such as traditional Greek coffee and the small coffeepots used to brew it, along with olive oil from olive trees owned by Poppi’s son Alexi in Greece — is in the works.
The decision to relocate happened quickly, and the transition will happen quickly.
“We looked at the space for the very first time on July 4, and we signed almost exactly one month later,” Walling said. “There were green lights on everything. The whole thing felt very supported and very aligned.”
Poppi’s plans to serve its final meal at the current location Sunday, Sept. 28 — fittingly, during one of their popular Sunday Greek nights in which customers order from an expanded Greek menu. The restaurant will then spend a few days moving and setting up the new space.
Poppi’s plans to hold a grand reopening Oct. 7 or Oct. 8. The new location will be closed on Mondays but will add a Sunday lunch service while continuing its Sunday Greek night tradition.
The 5th Street Public Market location offers unique opportunities. With two entrances — one from Fifth Avenue and another from the second level overlooking the market’s courtyard — Poppi’s is exploring the possibility of closing off the courtyard for special celebrations. These could feature live traditional Greek music, belly dancers and family-style dining in an outdoor setting.
“There’s a lot more opportunity to have new ways to experience Poppi’s,” Walling said, “taking Sunday Greek night to a whole new level.”
For a restaurant with such deep community roots, the move represents both opportunity and loss. The owner acknowledged feeling “so excited, so sad” about leaving a location that has been home for nearly four decades.
“Poppi’s is going through an identity evolution, and that’s happening for me too, as the owner,” she reflected. “Growth isn’t always comfortable. Poppi taught me that.”
The final Sunday Greek night Sept. 28 will serve as both farewell and celebration, featuring the usual menu alongside toasts and acknowledgments of the restaurant’s journey. But Walling said she views it as more of a “going away party … a celebration of the transformation that Poppi’s is undergoing.”
As Walling prepares for this significant change, the owner emphasized her gratitude to Eugene’s dining community.
“I feel a really deep sense of gratitude to this community and the way that it’s been supportive of Poppi’s through all of its different iterations,” Walling said, asking patrons to “bear with us through the change and the speed bumps along the way.”
Want to go?
Poppi’s Anatolia
Current location, until Sept. 28:
992 Willamette St.
New location, open in early October:
296 E. Fifth Ave., Suite 220
541-343-9661
poppisanatolia.com
