Spyro Gyros and Salads, by Meghan Phillips
SPYRO GYROS AND SALADS (2007 – 2016)
I think (I hope?) maybe everyone had a place like Spyro Gyros in their 20s. Small and sticky-boothed, it was the only place in walking distance of the bars in downtown Lancaster that was open after last call. You could get gyros and hummus plates until 4:00am. The food was cheap and tasty, and the staff was used to pretty much all their patrons being in varying states of inebriation. Spyro Gyros closed in July of 2016, the same month I turned 30.
My memories of Spyro are linked to my memories of my 20s. They’re the kind of memories that start “remember that time?” The kind that half the people that were there don’t remember.
Remember that time some drunk kid asked me if my glasses were real when we were waiting in line to order? He didn’t believe that they were, so I let them try them on.
Remember that time we went to 80’s Night at the Brickyard, and A picked up that guy dressed like a farmer from the 1780s? It turned out that he dressed like that all the time, that everyone in town called him Time-Traveler Brad. He was actually pretty cool. He wrote zombie comics. He and I talked about books, while A holed up in Spyro’s stall bathroom, puking or hiding or both.
Remember that time we ended up there the night I met the guy who would become my husband? On the sidewalk outside Spyro, he asked if I wanted to come over, keep hanging out, you know, smoke a bowl and listen to Zappa? It was 3:00am, and I was sure that was cool guy code for “come over and have sex.” I went home convinced I’d blown it. He found me on Facebook a few days later.
Remember that time I was the girl with a faux-hawk and glitter eyeshadow on 80’s night? The girl who drank lager if someone else was buying, Coors Lite if not? The girl who was always too shy to find a guy at the bar, but somehow married a guy that she met at a bar?
I don’t know who I’m asking to remember those nights. I’ve lost touch with most of the girls I hung out with. I doubt they’d remember anyway.
Meghan Phillips is the fiction editor for Third Point Press and an associate editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. You can find her in real life in libraries around Lancaster, PA, and on Twitter @mcarphil.