A Greek restaurant owner has chosen a unique way to advertise his business. He will give out a free iPhone 15 to the person who will eat his giant gyro serving.
Sounds easy as cake, or easy as gyro in this case, but as the grill house owner has said, no one has been up to the challenge so far.
Gyropoleion, as the grill house is called, is located in Neo Heraklion, a suburb in north Athens. It is a popular place at a central spot, but after this advertising gimmick, the giant gyros challenge has gone viral on social media, especially TikTok with many declaring that they are ready to take the challenge.
However, the real challenge is that you have to finish this mammoth-sized gyro, on top of fries, tomatoes, onions, and three large pitas in 20 minutes. As the owner said on Ant1 television, several people have tried to finish the platter but no one could do it in 20 minutes, so no free iPhone takeaway yet.
The whole platter weighs an average of six kilograms (13.2 lbs), so your mouth has to work hard and fast if you want a free cell phone.
Gyro: One of the most popular street foods in the World
Gyro in pita bread is one of the most popular street foods and the Greek fast food world. Non-Greeks often mispronounce it. The correct pronunciation is “yeero.” But, however, you pronounce it, it is always mouthwatering and delicious.
The meat is essentially pieces of pork grilled on a vertical rotisserie similar to the doner which nowadays is ground beef. It is then sliced and served wrapped or stuffed in pita bread, along with other ingredients such as tomato, onion, parsley, fried potatoes, and, of course, tzatziki sauce.
The exact origin of the gyro remains blurry. Some say it can be traced back to the army of Alexander the Great, which skewered and roasted various cuts of meat on long swords over an open fire.
However, in more modern times, grilling a vertical spit of stacked meat and slicing it off as it cooked was a grilling method that also appeared in 19th century Bursa in the Ottoman Empire. This was known as a doner kebab in Turkish.
In the early 20th century, doner kebab made of lamb meat was consequently also introduced in Athens by immigrants from Anatolia and the Middle East following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922.
The gyro in Greece eventually evolved into today’s form and texture during the Greek junta period (1967–1974), as minced beef—used at the time—was prohibited due to a rotten batch imported from abroad. Hence, although they have the same origin, nowadays, gyro and kebab are two very different things.
In Greece, the gyro meat in pita is usually called “souvlaki.” It is a general term, and its use includes souvlaki (small pieces of meat on a skewer), souvlaki on pita, or gyro on pita.