Olympik Restaurant Relocating After 27 Years

One of the oldest restaurants in West Ashley is preparing to move into a new location next month.

will move into Indigo Village Shopping Center, about a mile closer to Downtown Charleston than its current location near the intersection of Savannah Highway and Dupont Road. Owner Ali Naderi said the move should be finished sometime after the middle of September.

"My (lease) contract was up after 10 years and the owner of the property did want more money, but the main thing was he only wanted to renew it for five years," Naderi said of his reasons for moving. "I'm 62 now, in five years, at 67, it would have been much harder to move, I can still do it now, so I thought this was the time."

He said the age of the building where Olympik has been located for 27 years was also a factor. Much of the kitchen equipment was old, and some of it no longer meets requirements for commercial kitchens under DHEC rules that have been revised since it was installed. The utility bills were starting to skyrocket in the summer months as well - in July alone Naderi's electric bill exceeded $2,000, he said.

Naderi bought the restaurant in February of 2002. For the previous 12 years he wa the head pastry chef and general manager at Saffron Bakery on East Bay Street. Before than Naderi worked as a pastry chef for a couple of hotel chains starting with the Omni International Group. Omni sent him from Miami, where he won the Best of Show for chocolatiers in a 1988 Omni Group competition, to St. Louis, and on to Charleston when the company still owned the Charleston Place Hotel.

"I've been in this business for 41 years," Naderi said.

When he purchased Olympik more than 10 years ago, he said it just felt like time for him to own his own business. He felt he had learned enough working in various roles in the food service industry that all that was left was to own the business in addition to running it.

Naderi has spent a lot of time and money preparing for the move. The spot he found in Indigo Village had never been filled before, so he had to install all the wiring and plumbing fixtures, he built separate men's and women's bathrooms, installed a hood vent for the kitchen, added a second air conditioning unit and laid in new tile and carpeting.

Finding the right spot for the Olympik's new home was no easy task though.

"We looked at probably 10 locations," he said. "Some I could have even bought the property, but this one was the best."

"A customer helped us look at locations," Naderi's wife Charmaine Naderi said. "We wanted enough parking and access to a traffic light, and somewhere not too far from where we are now."

Staying in West Ashley was paramount in the decision on where to move. Naderi said he had no intention of losing such as loyal base of patrons that Olympik has built over its 27-year history.

"We had a couple of customers tell us that if we don't call them to come help us with the move they'll be outside the new restaurant picketing," Charmaine Naderi said.

The new location has a 900-square-foot dining room, which allows for about the same amount of seating as the current location, but the kitchen provides more room for the cooks. Naderi plans to keep the same menu for the Olympik's new address, but he said he'll add a few new surprises as well.

That menu is important to Naderi. He's happy to point out that he offers at least 10 vegetarian options and has several gluten-free menu items, including the almond marzipan cookies he created specifically as a gluten-free dessert option. And several other items on the menu got there after customers had requested them.

"I wanted a good job where I could serve people good, decent food, healthy food," Naderi said. "That's why the Mediterranean menu is so important."

Naderi said he also couldn't stay in business without his dedicated staff, including Charmaine. He employs between seven and nine people throughout the year, and he hopes he'll be able to hire more if business in the new location increases. He even has a plan to expand in the future if everything works out.

"I used to make hundreds of kinds of cake, but the kitchen here was so small I had to cut down to just a few that we could do really well," he said. "There is another small space in the back of the shopping center and I've already talked to the owner about it, maybe in a year or two, if everything goes well and I'm still able, we talked about maybe me expanding into that space too."

Olympik offers delivery service through Quick Foxes at 277-9271, and catering and special order cakes are available as well.