DOWNEY - Downey’s popular Downey Greek Food Festival will return next month.

The Greek Festival will take place on June 4 and 5 this year.

Known to draw thousands to the St. George Greek Church each year, the beloved exhibition of Greek Food and Culture has been forcibly put on hiatus for the last two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Festival Marketing Director Thanasi Papoulias says that festival organizers “are just happy to be back.”

“We’re looking to just get back into the groove of things, bring back what everybody has known in the past,” said Papoulias. “Really, the focus is on the food; trying to bring authentic Greek cuisine to Downey, which most festivals try to do, but we feel we do the best.”

Upon return, Papoulias says that attendees will see anywhere from 10 to 15 lambs cooking over a barbeque at any one time. The festival will also offer other traditional food options. There will also be plenty of family entertainment offered.

Now nearly 40 years since its inception, the festival acts as a fundraiser and one of the main revenue streams for the St. George Church. Papoulias says that missing out on that opportunity for the last two years “made it tough coming into this year.”

“Usually, we rely on money from previous years to be able to boost us,” said Papulias. “That’s probably the biggest challenge, was losing out on a couple years’ worth of funds going back into the programs at St. George Church, including the hall they’re trying to build, including the sports events and the sports activities that we have for the kids, and of course your day-to-day operational costs to run a church.”

With some uncertainty amongst some concerning the pandemic still, there is some cautious optimism heading into this year’s event.

“We are prepared to make some pivots if we have to leading up to the event,” said Papoulias. “A couple weeks beforehand, if we see that things look good, there’s no uptick, we can still make a decision to increase whatever it is we were looking at, that we were staying cautious about.”

While the festival usually tries to bring something new and exciting with every passing iteration, this year will be primarily about getting back to its roots and the community.

“I think this year everybody agrees, you know what, we’re not going to try to hit that; let’s just try to maintain what we had,” said Papoulias. “First year after the pandemic, let’s see how it goes, and then the following year we can do that.”

“Really, it’s just about making awareness this year. We want to let everybody know that we’re back, we’re excited to be back,” said Papoulias.