Restaurants run deep in a family that has opened a new takeout location for their Greek restaurant in Guelph.
Siblings Dinosha Dhavaloganathan and Thusenth Dhavaloganathan are co-founders of YIAYIA on 304 Stone Rd. W. YIAYIA started as a pop-up restaurant in 2019.
“It’s been really great to be back, we were worried we weren’t going to be able to reconnect with our customers," said Dinosha.
The new location for YIAYIA officially opened July 5 after delays due to the pandemic, notes Amina Gilani, Thusenth's wife and another co-founder.
“It did really well, but what happened was that we wanted to find a space that was central to Guelph, because we always wanted to do a takeout and delivery concept, and being in the north end of Guelph, we weren’t able to reach the south end of Guelph," said Gilani.
With a new location also comes a new menu. Dinosha notes YIAYIA has taken iconic Greek dishes and turned them into bowls and pitas, like the O.G. (original Greek) bowl or the Greek salad which comes with fried halloumi cheese. This way, YIAYIA offers good food to go that won't weigh people down.
"Before, we used to do more traditional Greek food, like souvlaki, but as we figure, we're takeout, and especially for people on the go, having sticks wouldn't be the most comfortable way to eat," said Dinosha. "So, we changed it now so it's chopped up chicken (and meat.)"
With exception to the pitas and mini kokakias, the rest of the food at YIAYIA is made from scratch. Gilani notes the YIAYIA supreme is a popular item, which is shoestring fries with spices, diced lamb and beef gyros, feta, tomato, onion, and red pepper feta sauce on top.
All three founders are interested in continuing to experiment with Greek food and explore other cuisines in future business opportunities.
"We have this thing we call the lab, where we kind of play around with new (recipes,)" said Gilani. "What we've been doing is putting stuff out there. So like, even with our Instagram, if we're working on something new, we'll showcase it and get feedback on it."
"Literally, this menu board changes twice a week," said Thusenth, noting they offer options for vegans, vegetarians and all their meat is halal.
Although the food is more modern, YIAYIA still wants to provide an old style of service. Dinosha and Thusenth's father, Tavon Dhavaloganathan, immigrated from Sri Lanka to Canada in the '80s and began working at a Greek restaurant. In over 20 years, Tavon has owned three restaurants, including Creekside Kitchen on Downey Road, which serves Greek and American cuisine.
"Our namesake is YIAYIA, because we wanted to honour the traditional way of doing it, the way the grandmas would do it flavour-wise," said Dinosha, who notes her and her brother have been in family restaurants all their lives.
"A lot of these recipes came from our dad over the years and there's no shortage of (Greek) grandmas who have taught him," said Thusenth.
Gilani notes her father-in-law's business is successful because of his hospitality and YIAYIA wants to build the same reputation.
"We knew we were going to be more digital, but offer digital hospitality, where you still know your guests, and to us, that is important," said Gilani.
YIAYIA is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. To learn more, go to yiayia.ca.
