New Restaurant Coming to Heart of Avondale Estates

Two men plan to open a restaurant called Pallookaville Fine Foods in the long-empty, Tudor-style building at Avondale Estates' main intersection.

Johnny Gianoulidis said the restaurant will serve "diner-style food" that he characterized as a cross between Greek and Southern.

Pallookaville Fine Foods will have 1930s soda fountain, deli sandwiches and hamburgers, corndogs, meat-and-three meals at night and a full bar, he said.

"We want to be a community gathering place," he said of the building at Clarendon and Avondale roads. "We think the commercial aspect of the neighborhood is underutilized."

Gianoulidis owns ParkGrounds cafe on Flat Shoals Road in Reynoldstown. He declined to name his business partner. They hope to open in April or May.

The Avondale Estates building has been empty for years and contributed to downtown Avondale Estates sense of abandonment. It was featured March 20 in Patch's "What Should Go Here?" feature.

Gianoulidis said he and his partner will lease the entire building and plan to convert the upstairs into an events center. Plans call for construction of a patio on the Avondale Road side of the building and removal of the window unit air conditioners.

He hopes to duplicate the warm, inviting atmosphere of the pizza restaurant his parents operated in Connecticut.

"It was one of the cornerstones of the neighborhood," he said. "We literally saw three generations pass through the doors."