Mid-Cities Greek FoodFest marks its 34th year with food, dance and church tours in Euless

St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church just marked 34 years of open-door hospitality. The Mid-Cities Greek FoodFest closed Sunday, October 4, 2026, at the church at 303 Cullum Drive in Euless — another free weekend of Greek food, dancing, and church tours in a tradition the parish has kept unbroken since it started the festival in 1993. Visitors came all three days of the Oct. 2–4 run from across Tarrant County and the wider Dallas–Fort Worth area.

The table and the stage

The menu stretched from pastitsio and moussaka to saganaki, gyros, souvlaki, lamb chops, and baklava sundaes, with Greek coffee, Greek wines, ouzo, and Fix Hellas beer. The recipes come from the church community's own tables, and the festival's website sets the expectation plainly: "come hungry, leave inspired."

Seven dance groups took the stage over the weekend — Olympian, Fotia, Hellenic, Young Athenians, Opa, Souma, and Alumni. Luca Tudora, a lead performer with Fotia, put it simply: "Greece brought to you by Texans." He added, "You got Southern hospitality with Greek food — that's essentially what's going on here."

Scheduled, guided tours carried visitors into the church itself and through the history of Greek Orthodox Christianity between performances, while a Greek marketplace offered goods, imports, and artisan items, with raffle prizes drawn that Sunday.

Who makes it run

The labor is the congregation's own. Parishioners volunteered throughout the weekend to cook, serve food, welcome guests, and lead the church tours. Michael Eftimie, a chef at the festival, said, "I love to see our church family come together as volunteers, and then I love how we welcome the community from outside in." He named it: "We call that philoxenia, the love of the neighbor or the stranger."

A parish that grew with the city

St. John the Baptist was established in 1980, moved to its Cullum Drive campus in 1985, and built a multipurpose church-and-hall building in 1987. The congregation opened its current Byzantine-style church on July 14, 2012, and consecrated it on June 24, 2023, in a ceremony led by Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver. Rev. Protopresbyter Vasile Tudora has served as presiding priest (Proistamenos) since 2007.

A fixture Euless can count on

Among the weekend's visitors was Shane Pratt, who attended with his partner, Grace Cannon. "It's a very homey feeling," Pratt said. "It's a really good community and it's all in support of good things."

After 34 years, the festival has become less a menu than one of Euless's standing civic fixtures — an unpaid, recurring place where neighbors meet, eat, and dance beside people they would otherwise only pass on the road. For anyone already planning next fall, the festival runs cashless, with free off-site parking and $5 on-site parking; the parish can be reached at 817-283-2291. When the 35th year arrives, the same church on Cullum Drive will open its doors again.