Nick Stanitsas opened Kefi Fast Fresh Mediterranean in 2020, an order-at-the-counter restaurant with pita wraps and bowls on the north end of Bend, at the age of 26. Now, he’s preparing to celebrate the restaurant’s fifth anniversary, but the future of his business remains unclear, he said.

Two weeks after Stanitsas opened his restaurant, a worldwide pandemic was declared. Then over the summer of 2024, business took another hit when construction closures for the Bend North Corridor Project decimated business during the crucial summer rush.

From Friday through Monday, Kefi is rolling back its prices on bowls and pita wraps to $11 — the same price it introduced in 2020 — to thank its customers for keeping its doors open, said Menoula Stanitsas, Nick’s mother and Kefi’s business manager.

“We want to thank the core Bend community who supported us,” she said. “They have kept us going. And so we’re rolling back our prices for those four days as a thank you to those who kept coming in.”

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Navigating unprecedented challenges

Nick, a graduate of the Cascade Culinary Institute at Central Oregon Community College, opened Kefi with the help of his mother Menoula and father George, who helped him race to keep the fledgling business after the pandemic upended operations. At the time, the restaurant hadn’t finished its website. It didn’t have online ordering available and there was one phone line to accept orders from customers learning the process of ordering the menu’s customizable options, Menoula said.

After enduring the challenges of the pandemic and construction closures, staying in business for five years feels like a hard-won feat.

“There were so many times that we just felt we’re not going to make it,” Menoula said. “Even my husband who was in the restaurant business in southern California for 45 years and faced many dips in the economy over that time, never faced anything like COVID.”

Nick learned aspects of the restaurant industry firsthand in the diners owned by his father. George, who emigrated from Greece at 17 years old, struggled to understand why Nick wanted to pursue the restaurant business.

“When he told us he was going to culinary school, my husband said, ‘What are you doing? You can be anything you want to be,’” Menoula said.

But Nick knew he wanted to start a restaurant before graduating high school.

“I sat in an interview for a restaurant job 10 years ago and they said, ‘In five years, what do you imagine yourself doing?’ And I said I wanted to own a restaurant. And so then I did it,” Nick said.

As parents, George and Menoula were supportive of the venture.

“This was our retirement,” Menoula said. “We wanted to support our son and we thought we’d give him money to open this place — which is what we did — and we’ll just be silent partners.”

Asking for help

Five years later, Nick’s parents are finally starting to feel like they’re retired.

However, with the rising cost of food prices and the new traffic patterns, Nick is still trying to figure out the factors affecting business.

Kefi imports its olives from Greece and its tahini from Israel. The cost of the latter has increased substantially over the last several years, Nick said.

“One thing that my dad always talked about, like he always tries to figure out the why,” he said. “It’s really hard to run a business when you have no idea what’s happening. There’s just so much uncertainty and you don’t really know why people aren’t coming.”

When Kefi struggled to attract customers during the construction on Highway 97 last summer, Nick admitted the restaurant was struggling to stay afloat on Facebook and Instagram, asking customers to tell a friend about the eatery.

The message spread quickly and to this day, customers still come in asking how the restaurant is faring.

“I think a lot of businesses are afraid to let people know that they’re not doing well,” Nick said. “When we made a Facebook post, that was our busiest day of the year.”

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Details

What: Kefi Fash Fresh Mediterranean

Location: 20520 Robal Lane #120, Bend

Contact: kefifresh.com or 541-797-6554

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Prices Range: Pita wraps start at $14 and bowls at $14.50, bowls and wraps $11 from Friday through Monday