In the "National Herald"

"Ethnikos Kyrix", the Greek-American newspaper of choice for more than 107 years, gives us their stamp of approval.

Like every family business, like every immigrant family business, ours is built on the blood, sweat and tears of our parents and grandparents, the people who worked hard to give us more opportunities, to get us into better schools and to teach us how to do the right thing.

Our restaurant first opened more than eight years ago and this is a story we rarely get into, because this is just how people were made back then, how our parents were built, just take life's hardships on the chin and move on, keep working, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Our mom had a tough childhood. Her father passed away from cancer when she was two years old. Her mother had to emigrate from Greece to Germany for work. She was raised by her grandparents with very little means. Our neighbors on the island of Zakynthos remember our mom and her two brothers going to school with mended clothes but always pressed, hair always combed. She was sent to a boarding school in far-away Athens when she was twelve. In her late teens, she met our father, a British-Greek-American-by-way-of-Egypt United States Air Force officer stationed in Greece. A year later they were married in New York, in rough-and-tumble 1970s New York, where they raised three kids while our Dad was working fourteen hours a day. The American story, really.

So to see even just a brief mention of our family's history in the most historic Greek-American newspaper really touched us all deeply. The family group chat was all sobs and cheers emojis. If not for anything else, thank you to the National Herald for giving us a moment to pause and reflect.

In her expansive article, Ms. Anna Tsioulias, a pre-med student at Georgetown and aspiring Greek journalist on the side, writes:

"What distinguishes Our Mom Eugenia from the numerous Mediterranean fusion spots in the DC area is its commitment to exclusively Greek cuisine. Behind the three locations in Great Falls, Shirlington, and Mosaic District, stands Eugenia Hobson, whose reputation for her mastery of quality, authentic Greek cuisine is the backbone of the restaurant’s success.

Though she had formal culinary training at Angeliki Hatzimichali’s ‘Elliniko Spiti’, a vocational school in Athens, the foundation of her cooking is rooted in the memory and flavors of her youth.

Raised by her grandparents in Zakynthos after losing her father at the age of two, she spent her childhood watching her grandmother cook.

“That’s where it all started,” Eugenia Hobson said. “My true love for cooking began in my grandmother’s kitchen. Many of the recipes I still use are from her.”

In 1972, she met her husband, a Greek-American U.S. Air Force service member stationed in Athens. At just 17, she moved to New York to start her family. For years, she put her culinary dreams on hold to raise her two sons and daughter while her husband worked. Once her children were older, she returned to the kitchen, working at Greek establishments like Wooden Shoe Pastry Bakery in Silver Spring, MD, and Mykonos Grill in Rockville, MD. Yet, she never let go of her biggest dream.

“I always wanted to open my own place,” Eugenia Hobson said. “When you work for someone else, you always have to follow their instructions. But now, everything we serve is exactly how I want it, just like how I grew up cooking and how my grandmother taught me.”