Greek History

Rumor is that the Papadakis Taverna may be closing.

We'll call it the day the moussaka died.

The legendary San Pedro restaurant is owned by former USC football player John Papadakis and his brother Tom. John's sons are Taso and Petros, who also played for the Trojans. Petros now has a talk show on KLAC-AM (570) and is the PA announcer at USC basketball games.

On its website, they modestly claim to be "perhaps the greatest Greek restaurant the world has ever known!" Scores of loyal Trojans and other locals have agreed for decades.

The Taverna used to host recruiting dinners for USC, but that caused some controversy when somebody realized the restaurant lies marginally outside of the maximum distance the NCAA allows those events to be held from campus.

To this day, the Taverna still welcomes other USC-related events and is a part of school lore. Its loss would be sad for the Trojan Family and San Pedro.

Photo by Julian Bleecker via Flickr.