Longtime Greek grocer Titan Foods reopens near Astoria’s 'Little Egypt'

Titan Foods (pronounced Tee-Tawn), the beloved Greek grocery store that anchored a stretch of 31st Street in Astoria for decades and closed in 2023, has reopened on the other side of the neighborhood at Steinway Street and 23rd Road.

Shoppers packed the aisles in the middle of the workday Friday, waiting in lines for slabs of fresh-cut Arahova feta, house-baked spanakopita and tubs of Agriniou olives.

“The old [location] has really good memories for me,” said Tracee Chimo, who was in the feta line pushing a double stroller. During tough times some years ago, she said, Titan made her feel like being back home with her grandfather.

“I felt his presence around the old Titan and I used to go there a lot to make myself feel better,” she said.

The original Titan Foods, which touted itself as “the largest retail Greek food and grocery store in North America,” closed in mid-2023 after nearly 40 years in Astoria. The sprawling, 16,000-square-foot location was losing $500,000 a year in its final few years, owner Kostas Mastoras told the Greek diaspora publication “The National Herald” at the time.

The family and business partners sold the building and hoped to reopen within months, but real estate negotiations dragged on, according to Kostas’ daughter Anna Mastoras, who oversees the new location.

The absence left a noticeable gap in the neighborhood’s Greek community, where Titan had served generations with everything from moussaka and mizithra to hand-pressed yogurts and mountain tea.

On Friday, Mastoras stood greeting old regulars in Greek, pointing out all the people she’s known since she was a baby. A woman in sunglasses stopped short as she passed.

“You’re Anna, right?” the woman asked. “I have to go out, so I can’t carry anything today, but another day. Today I just came to look around.”

Mastoras beamed: “That was Petra, there’s Pandora that just passed by, that’s Calliope over there.”

The new location, about 10 blocks northeast of the old Titan Foods, is just across the metaphorical Mediterranean of Grand Central Parkway from Steinway Street’s “Little Egypt,” with its cluster of Middle Eastern restaurants, grocers, sweet shops and lounges.

Mastoras said Titan’s begun offering Middle Eastern items like pitas and lahmajoun — a minced meat and spice-covered flatbread — to cater to the tastes of its new neighbors, and as a departure from Titan’s strictly Greek focus in the past.

She said the old location had busloads of shoppers coming in from major Greek-American communities in Boston and Connecticut.

“The churches would gather 100 people and call us like three hours before to say they were coming,” she said with a laugh. “I felt like a war was starting, it’s all hands on deck everybody.”

Astoria resident Nancy Li popped in on Friday to try a spanakopita from the hot and prepared foods section.

“I usually go to [rival] Mediterranean Foods,” Li said. “But because Titan reopened on my side of the neighborhood I figured I’d stop by.”