The success of A Street Hospitality — a Boston-based, nine-unit restaurant group anchored in Greek cuisine — stems from the partnership of the three friends who built the portfolio from scratch almost 15 years ago.
A Street Hospitality is split between casual-dining and fast-casual divisions, including fast-casual Greek restaurant Saloniki, full-service Mediterranean coastal restaurant Porto, full-service Italian comfort food restaurant La Padrona, and full-service Greek flagship restaurant, Trade. While the group’s concepts lean heavily Greek-Mediterranean, cofounder and CEO Eric Papachristos said it doesn’t have to stay that way.
“We don’t have to necessarily hold ourselves into a box,” Papachristos said. “We particularly like having the flexibility of going full-service to fast-casual. … It’s definitely a challenge to straddle those two disciplines, but it’s also an opportunity, because we don’t have to creatively limit ourselves. If we want to do an American bistro or burger concept next, we can do it.”
For Papachristos and his two cofounders, chief culinary officer Jody Adams, and chief operating officer, Jon Mendez, portfolio flexibility is only one of A Street’s competitive advantages. The other? Their business partnership.
A Street Hospitality started in 2011 with Trade as the flagship concept. At the time, Adams and Papachristos got together to discuss opening a business through a mutual friend. After Trade took off as an early success, Mendez joined as a general manager for the restaurant and began pitching a second concept inspired by his travels to Greece.
In 2016, Mendez opened Saloniki, while Mendez and Adams were operating Porto. Before the pandemic, the different brands under the A Street Hospitality portfolio were operating across different factions and combinations of owners. In 2020, A Street Hospitality went through a rough patch and had to lay off everyone, including themselves. However, these challenges gave them the opportunity to restructure A Street Hospitality as a single umbrella organization, which has now been operating in its consolidated state for the past five years.
“I don’t think we had the intention of building a hospitality empire, but we are all very much driven in this very same way: by academics and by hard work, and I think that’s a very interesting common denominator,” Papachristos said.
Like the growth of A Street Hospitality, much of the founders’ partnership happened organically.
“Our journey began as personal relationships connected by people who are fellow travelers and hospitable people at their cores,” Mendez said. “This was my first real hospitality job. I had waited tables before but never put pen to paper as a long-term career. … That’s kind of been our M-O since the beginning. We just go for it and figure it out as we go along.”
The most recent restaurant opening was La Padrona, which is A Street Hospitality’s most critically acclaimed restaurant to date. Currently, the team is taking a breather when it comes to expansion and opening new concepts. In the future, A Street Hospitality hopes to grow Saloniki, especially since fast-casual restaurants are simpler to scale.
Right now, they are focused on perfecting operations and menu innovation, from Saloniki’s pita sandwich topped with French fries (the authentic Greek-style pita), Porto’s famous Bolognese, multiple lamb dish highlights at Trade, and modern Italian classics like Cacio e Pepe at La Padrona.
“We are three people are work really hard in the restaurants,” Adams said. “[Before we joined forces], it came clear that the world didn’t know us for our expertise, our partnership, and our mentoring in the way we conduct business. It was important to bring all of that together under one umbrella and talk about what is similar about these restaurants around Boston. Eventually, we will probably grow beyond those borders, but right now we’re focused on here.”
