One of the Largest Greek Food Stores in America Is Closing

The building that houses Titan Foods, Astoria’s Greek grocer that bills itself “the largest retail Greek food and grocery store in North America,” in business for nearly 40 years, has been sold.

While the original location is closing, the daughter of the founder, Anatoli (Anna) Mastoras, confirms the market is moving very nearby and they’re currently in lease negotiations.

The shop at 25-56 31st Street went for $10.5 million, International English-language Greek newspaper the National Herald reported. The deed (Patco Re LLC selling the property to Aniska31 Realty LLC) shows that the sale includes the Titan building and parking lot, as well as a single-family home and lot directly behind Titan Foods on 30th Street.

Kostas and Stavroula Mastoras came to the U.S. in the 1970s as graduate students and opened Titan Foods as a small Greek deli with two college friends. The family moved the shop to 25-56 31st Street in 1996, with a footprint of over 16,000 square feet, which allowed them to expand its roster of domestic and Greek imports, including produce, dairy, bakery items, meats, and seafood. In addition to the Astoria store, Titan Foods has a sister wholesale distribution company called Optima, and another retail store in Deer Park, Long Island the site of the brand’s bakery.

New York has no shortage of Greek markets, bakeries, and Mediterranean shops with Greek products, but Titan Foods is the biggest. There are, for example, around 20 varieties of feta cheese alone. Kalamata olives are ubiquitous, though less common varieties are also available such as the small green Nafplion olives. The dairy section includes a thick, pressed yogurt made with cow and goat milk. A wall of pasta displays shapes like rizaki, even smaller than orzo. Halvah comes in every style and flavor imaginable, including one that looks like spun sugar. The olive oil and honey selections are massive, with many of the products sourced from Thessaloniki.

The prepared foods section includes moussaka, lemony roasted potatoes, and chicken avgolemono. And the bakery section is aligned with spanakopitas (spinach pies) and tiropitas, a Greek cheese pastry. The sweets section has baklava as well as melomakarona, a cookie with nuts and warm spices soaked in sugar-honey syrup.

The new shop will be “a fresh start” Mastoras confirms as well as a “different setup and a different design.”