How We Go Columbia: Zorba’s at Seven Oaks

The Zorba’s Greek restaurant in the Seven Oaks shopping center is just what a neighborhood restaurant should be. It has a lunch menu to savor and prices you can’t beat, especially for the mounds of food customers get. We turn our tasty leftovers into my take-to-work lunches. Dinner prices are reasonable, but most customers are clued into showing up between 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to get the best deal.

Customers rarely have to wait for a table – servers know their clientele as well as the menu. The staff is courteous and efficient, returning to your table routinely to fill a glass of ice tea or water.

The decor at the 6169 St. Andrews Road location is intended, I guess, to capture the Greek heavens filled with billowy white clouds. The result is unusual, marshmallow clumps along the ceiling.

But the food compensates for the ambiance. And then there’s a large rotating showcase of decadent desserts to tempt you – if you have room in your belly after a hearty meals Zorba’s.

The years, careers and a family have turned staff writer Clif LeBlanc into a typical suburbanite. Working in Columbia and living in an established neighborhood gives him easy access to downtown where he and his wife work and shop. Busy lives have limited the time for fine dining. So when the two go out to eat, it tends to be close to home as well as to the stores where they buy groceries and everything else to maintain their home, yard and lifestyle.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 5:27 PM with the headline "How We Go Columbia: Zorba’s at Seven Oaks."