This weekend Daytona Beach celebrated Daytona’s 45th Annual Greek Festival. For decades now the multiday community event has been held every November on the Halifax River at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Daytona Beach.
This festival was for all and is a decades-long tradition of not just allowing others to observe authentic Greek culture, but also participate in it.
They had traditional Greek music like the Hasapiko, Tsamiko, Sirto, Zeibekiko, and Pentozali, while the church’s dancers performed traditional folk dances in costume.
Authentic Greek cuisine was also created from family recipes including gyros, stuffed grape leaves, baklava, pork souvlaki, spanakopita, galaktoboureko, fried calamari, and moussaka.
The festival’s team is very proud of their online ordering that they created two years ago and hope to grow it even more. For now, they have it only two days during the festival and it’s 10-5pm, they say they are doing better every year and hope to have more days for the online eventually.
A local Floridian, who was at the festival, says, “The food here at the Greek Festival is amazing. Every year these women do all this homemade cooking, and it’s fabulous, you’re never going to get any better Greek food in this area. We are so grateful to have it every single year.”
This year with the Tropical Storm Nicole, the event organizers were anxious, but the festival seemed to go smoothly, and they had success on all areas. One of the event workers said, “We have been very blessed, and St Demetrios is coming forward, stronger than ever.”
I came here when I was young,” says another local Floridian, “so seeing my daughter now enjoying the food and dancing is such a special moment for me.”
The 2023 festival will be held November 10th-13th. For more information visit their Facebook here and check out the Halifax Greek Festival to experience their rich culture and make some new memories.
Photographer: Abigail Romeo
Abigail Romeo
Staff Writer / Staff Photographer