Costas Restaurant

Costas earns its keep by solving a problem the sponge docks create for themselves: too many tourists funneled onto one strip, fighting for the same parking spots in front of the same handful of tavernas. Costas sits off that crush and runs a straightforward Greek lunch menu without the markup that comes with a waterfront table. The Greek salad is the test dish here, and it comes generous rather than styled, feta and olives and tomato in real quantity instead of a garnish's worth. The smelts are a smart order for a table splitting plates, small whole fried fish that read as a bar snack but work as a shared starter, and they show up in the kind of portion that suggests the kitchen isn't counting them out.

Lemon chicken soup, avgolemono by its real name, rounds out the trio locals order together, and it's the dish that separates a Greek kitchen that knows the form from one just checking a box on a menu. This is not sponge-dock spectacle. It's the lunch a Tarpon Springs local orders on a Tuesday, and the town has more of those cooks per capita than anywhere else in the country. Group-friendly seating and a moderate check make it the room for a table of four or six who want to eat well without turning lunch into an event.

The strip's bigger tavernas chase the cruise-ship crowd and price accordingly; Costas is built for the person who lives five minutes away and eats Greek food because it's what's for lunch, not because it's a destination. Portions run large enough that two people can share three dishes and leave full, which matters for a lunch spot competing against places that charge more for less. It's a sound alternative for anyone who tried to park on the main strip once and decided that wasn't going to be a regular habit.