Tompkins Square Park

Eater Critic Robert Sietsema Reflects On Odessa’s Legacy in the East Village | Eater NY

"A neighborhood mainstay for decades, Odessa was a long-running late-night diner that I came to think of as my place in the 1980s: frequented by working-class stiffs and counterculture types, famously open 24 hours on weekends, and located right across the street from Tompkins Square Park. Named for the Black Sea port and reflecting the neighborhood's Ukrainian immigrant population, it blended a Greek-diner standard menu with a strong Ukrainian co-specialty that in 1980 dominated the offerings — breaded veal and pork cutlets, stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, pierogies and blintzes, and the cheap, comforting steam-table mains ladled with brown gravy. Mike Skulikidis bought the restaurant in 1980 and later became its landlord; the original location closed in 2013, and the remaining space was shuttered in mid-March for the pandemic, briefly reopened for carryout, and has struggled since — it will serve its last plate of potato pierogies with sour cream and applesauce on Sunday, July 19. I never expected chefly food there, and it could be inconsistent, but the combination of convenience, familiarity, and low price was irresistible; on my last visit in 2015 the tuna melt was fine but a bit tired, while the Odessa special ($13) — tomato-drenched stuffed cabbage, a crisp potato pancake, four fried pierogies, and a hank of kielbasa oozing paprika oil and garlic — was fantastic, a true time capsule and love letter to an earlier East Village." - Robert Sietsema