Staff photo by LINDSAY RENNER
Owners Joe and Mina Gressis, far left, stand with some of the staff of OBO Indian Head in front of the restaurant’s signature brick oven.
Charles County loves its pizza, and the owners of a well-known local restaurant recognized this love and capitalized on it by offering the area something different in pie fare.
Following the success that Ouzo’s Greek and Regional Cuisine in La Plata enjoyed from the use of their brick oven-fired pizzas, owner Joe Gressis decided to expand to another restaurant in Waldorf, but wanted to focus on the pizza primarily.
Although Joe and his mother, Mina Gressis, own Ouzo’s together, Mina was quick to recognize that OBO Ouzo’s Brick Oven is Joe’s venture and Joe’s alone.
“The whole business is a family-owned affair, but Joe had the idea to open OBO and he’s been the one to see it through with both locations,” Mina Gressis said. “But we all wanted to offer the community something a bit more authentic to eat.”
Joe, in turn, attributes his personal success and that of the restaurant to his wife, Luciana’s organizational skills.
“If I didn’t have her organizing everything I do, none of this would be possible,” Joe said.
The strong levels of success enjoyed by the Waldorf location in Smallwood Village prompted in part the opening of the Indian Head store, but Mina said that was not the only factor.
“There’s just not much, if anything like this in Indian Head for the public to enjoy,” Mina said. “We wanted them to be able to enjoy the food from a close location just like the rest of the county. Plus, there were a lot of people asking for this, so it seemed like time.”
Although the store only opened last month, it already has enjoyed a strong patronage from the surrounding community.
“I think being open right next to the base does a lot to attract new business,” Mina said.
The restaurant is on Indian Head Highway in the town limits of Indian Head.
“It’s a different clientele here, a mix of locals and world travelers alike, and they seem to like what we’re selling. We’ve only been open for a week, but we haven’t stopped working,” she said.
Indeed, working to maintain the restaurant is nothing short of a round-the-clock job.
“Our days go from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., and it’s been like that from the start,” Mina said. “We go down to the Florida Avenue market in Northeast [Washington, D.C.] every morning to pick up the ingredients for the day, from the spices to the cheese to the toppings. Everything is fresh.”
Joe believes that OBO has enjoyed such success because of the presence of the brick oven. All three locations contain an oven that he built himself.
“I think the brick oven is what really attracts people,” Joe said. “It seems like it would be a disadvantage, but a brick oven can work just as fast as a conveyor oven, which most pizza places have. It gives the pizza a different taste, and we can still turn out about 30 pizzas an hour.”
Susan MacDonald, who works at both Ouzo’s and OBO Indian Head, said the business definitely has not gone unnoticed by the public.
“Ouzo’s is a lot more formal than OBO, and I think people like the casual dining here,” MacDonald said of the Indian Head site. “At lunch here, we can hardly keep up. We have two phones ringing off the hook, and a line out the door most of the time. It’s crazy, but it’s definitely good.”
In time, the Gressises plan to expand the restaurant’s menu to include some of the Greek fare included at the other locations.
“If it wasn’t for my mom’s taste buds and my cooking abilities, we wouldn’t be here now,” Joe said. “That’s what makes Ouzo’s and OBO.”
lrenner@somdnews.com