Zoe’s Kitchen opens in downtown Ocean City

Anesti Gjikuria, pictured with his wife, Nikoleta, purchased the restaurant space (formerly The Kitchen) on Wicomico Street in downtown Ocean City in November. After renovations, they opened Zoe’s Kitchen last month. OCEAN CITY TODAY/LISA CAPITELLI (May 28, 2010) The name Zoe means “life” in Greek, which is what Anesti Gjikuria has put back into the old Kitchen restaurant on Wicomico Street in downtown Ocean City.

“We wanted to bring life back into The Kitchen,” said Gjikuria, who moved to the area from Greece in 1998 at the age of 15, which was when he also first started working in the restaurant business.

Gjikuria bought the restaurant in November and spent months reviving and sprucing it up. He cleaned, took down a partition, built a new counter top, painted and changed the ceiling and floor tiles.

“It was closed last year and people are glad to see it reopened,” Gjikuria said. “All of the regular customers that used to come into the old restaurant see the changes and love them. They say they are so glad to see it open again because they used to come here for years.”

Zoe’s Kitchen opened last month.

The eatery’s main focus is breakfast. Featured on the menu created by Gjikuria are a variety of omelets, french toast, pancakes and the house specialty, creamed chipped beef. The restaurant opens daily at 7 a.m. Lunch items, such as salads, sandwiches, subs, gyros and pasta dishes, are also available.

Zoe’s Kitchen is family owned and operated. Gjikuria and his wife, Nikoleta, run the restaurant and his mother, Violet, makes the Greek pastries and pasta. Her specialty pasta dish, pastichio, comes from her own secret recipe. Gjikuria’s father, Vasil, greets customers and his sisters, Ida and Kate, also help out in the restaurant. Gjikuria said it is nice to work with his family.

Business has been good, he said, and many of the neighbors of the downtown Ocean City restaurant stop in several times a week to eat.