My girlfriend and I live near the multicultural treasure chest of eateries at the intersection of Nolensville Pike and Old Hickory Boulevard, and we’ve loved lots of them. Yet we keep going back to Gyro Spot, where we’ll stop in about once a month for the combo gyro plate. Each unassuming but delicious and generous portion comes in a container nearly bursting with rice, pita, gyro meat, shawarma-style chicken and salad, slathered in tzatziki or ranch. It’s not the comfort food I grew up with, but it’s extremely comforting regardless, like something you make for — or at least pick up on the way home to — someone you love on an ordinary day.
Besides the food, there’s another important component to the appeal: being a regular customer with a usual order. It’s not that it’s an uncommon experience, or that Gyro Spot treats us better than any diner treats its regulars. We aren’t on a first-name basis with the two guys who are usually working when we come in, but they know us by sight (harder to do with masks of course) or else our order, which is the same every time. And I’ve got a reply ready when one of them does his occasional bit where he tells me the check is a thousand bucks: “You drive a hard bargain, my friend, but it’s worth every penny.”
I’m getting older, more tired, less patient. These kinds of small, good things — I note with nods to Raymond Carver and late, great Scene editor Jim Ridley — have become very valuable to me. They help me bounce back a little quicker when I’m knocked down by a reminder of the ugly side of our world. And for that, dear Gyro Spot, I will always be grateful.
—Stephen Trageser
Music Editor, Nashville Scene
