The family-run food icon Lamia Super Deli has shut after decades of supplying dolmades, feta and fresh moussaka to customers who often crossed the city to shop there.
After more than half a century selling Greek cheeses, eggplant yemista and signature sandwiches, Marrickville food icon Lamia Super Deli has closed its doors, leaving questions about the future of small, family-run specialist food businesses.
When Lamia Super Deli announced its impending closure on social media earlier this month, customers – many of whom criss-crossed Sydney to shop there – paid their respects, one describing the deli in Marrickville’s “Little Greece” precinct as “the heart and soul of Marrickville Road”.
Peter Conistis, one of the country’s most celebrated Greek-Australian chefs, agreed with the sentiment, describing Lamia Super Deli as “playing a big part in my food education”. “I remember as a little kid they’d pass cheeses and olives over the counter to try,” he said.
The deli was teeming with dolmades, feta, fresh moussaka and a sandwich bar. It also traded in the more unusual: lamb dripping and a Conistis favourite, “tinned flying squid”. When the young chef opened his first restaurant, Cosmos, in Darlinghurst, he’d always visit Lamia “to see what was in from Greece”.
A family business, father and son Harry and Jim Cotsinis have been vocal about its undoing. “Like so many small family businesses, the rising cost of doing business, increasing import prices and the challenges of the last few years have made it harder to keep going,” they wrote on Lamia’s Instagram page.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
The pair did not reply to further questions from Good Food about the deli and its history in time for publication. But Jim Cotsinis has been forthright in several media outlets about the squeeze on margins for businesses like Lamia, and lambasted tax hikes in May’s federal budget, arguing they have removed incentives for small businesses hoping to one day sell.
While many Greek venues continue to thrive in a more widely multicultural Marrickville, there have also been other losses. The Greek-owned Fruit Mart on Illawarra Road, a local fixture since 1969, closed in May.
Greek-Australian chef David Tsirekas, who first etched his name on the Sydney food landscape at Perama restaurant in Petersham, said small food businesses face a raft of challenges, including a move away from high-street shopping. “Rents are high and parking is difficult,” he said.
“I used to go there [Lamia] all the time when I was at Perama, I’m really sad it has closed,” Tsirekas said. “The world is changing and there is greater access to Greek products.” He points to supermarkets muscling into the sector with greater buying power and cheap prices.
“They are also competing against the algorithm,” Tsirekas said of social media’s push toward newer, hotter food venues. “We’re being distracted by these places we see when we doomscroll. It’s forming a tribe going to the next thing, testing our loyalty to these [established] venues.”
Tsirekas has spent the past few years working in Chicago, a city with a large Greek population. He said Sydneysiders are lucky to have a unique precinct like Marrickville. “It still has that Greekness,” he said. While new Greek food venues like grill house Olympic Meats continue to choose opening locations such as Marrickville, they’ll have to forge a new path for the suburb without stalwart Lamia Super Deli in their corner.
