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“It was a necessity to open Stella’s. I needed to succeed.”
Stella Dikos’ quote about her restaurant summarizes her story of overcoming all kinds of odds and hardships that most of us who enjoy her dishes and delicacies could never understand; but we are thankful that she endured and made an indelible impact of Richmond’s food scene and reputation.
Stella Dikos passed away at the age of 82 on June 28th.
Stella was the epitome of success. Success as a wife and mother, success as a restaurant owner and chef, success as an immigrant, success as someone who overcame long odds, and success as a person who cared about others.
She helped put Richmond’s food scene on the map and even more importantly, broadened people’s horizons and expectations of what food is beyond our borders and how important it is, not only to our taste buds, but to our acceptance and understanding of other people and cultures.
Not too many decades ago, Richmond was like many mid-sized cities across the country where the stereotypical “meat-and-potatoes” mentality was the bill of fare for eating out and any real ethnic options were few and far between. Sure Richmond had a few places that offered a different menu and cultural experience like La Petit France, but those establishments were higher-end and beyond the reach of many to experience and enjoy. But the Greek community was prominent in Richmond and growing. I can recall first going to my Greek Festival circa 1980 (when it didn’t even fill their own back parking lot) with my parents and talking with Father Dombalis and eating yahni, souvlaki, and baklava for the first time and listening to Greek music and watching the dancers on stage.
Stella’s experience in Richmond began in the early 1960’s at the original The Village (across the street from the current Village Cafe) and then she opened the first Stella’s a stone’s throw away on Harrison Street (where Edo’s Squid is today) and then to Stella’s on Main Street and the current Stella’s location on Lafayette Avenue, accompanied by Stella’s Grocery in spots all around town.
She was born in Northern Greece in 1942 when the country was occupied by the Nazis during World War II. Stella’s mother died during childbirth when she was three years old and lost five children before delivering Stella and later her little brother, Nick. Stella’s grandmother moved in to help care for the children and shared a room with her, but often clashed with Stella’s father, Mikhail.
Her father was a tailor and beekeeper and was demanding and distant in her youth; she would come home right after school for chores like cleaning and cooking and tending to the bee hives. She learned to make spanakopita in her neighbor’s kitchen in what would become her signature dish and kept cooking more through her teenage years. Stella found solace in cooking and often she was summoned by neighbors to help them in their kitchens.
“I was a person who needed nurturing and affection because I could see it around the neighborhood with other families. … It was haunting me inside that I didn’t have that,” she told Richmond Magazine in a wonderful profile written by Eileen Mellon in 2019.
Her father made both children take English classes, and her aunt approached Stella after high school about an arranged marriage that would take her to America. She met Stavros Dikos, who was already living in America, over tea and dessert.
He asked if she liked America. She said, “Yes, I think I would like America.”
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