Gyros, souvlakia and live bouzouki music will fill the grounds of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church again this September, as El Paso's Original Greek Fest returns for its 31st year on Festival Drive in West El Paso. The three-day celebration runs September 18-20, with organizers promising the same mix of homemade Greek pastries, folk dancing and cultural exhibits that has drawn Borderland families to the parish for more than three decades.
According to KFOX14/CBS4, the festival kicks off Friday, September 18, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., continues Saturday, September 19, from noon to 10 p.m., and wraps up Sunday, September 20, from noon to 6 p.m. General admission is $5 for adults, while children younger than 12 get in free. First responders, firefighters, police officers, and active-duty military members can all get in for a discounted $3 with proper identification, per the outlet's report.
New this year is a Doro pre-sale ticket — Doro meaning “gift” in Greek, as the station notes — priced at $20 and including free admission plus 20 festival tickets redeemable for food and drinks. Organizers introduced the option for 2026 as a way to streamline the experience for returning festivalgoers who already know they'll be filling up on gyros, dolmathes and spanakopita all weekend. Festival information, including hours and ticket details, is available at stnicholasep.com.
A Small Parish With Deep Borderland Roots
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located at 124 S. Festival Drive, has organized the fest for more than 30 years, welcoming the community back each fall to share in Greek traditions and the life of the parish itself. The event traces its roots to 1995, with the 2025 gathering marking the festival's 30th annual edition, according to a KRWG Public Media community calendar listing — making this year's run the 31st.
The congregation behind the festival is notably small. U.S. Religion Census data from 2020 recorded just 100 Greek Orthodox adherents in El Paso County, making St. Nicholas the only Greek Orthodox parish in the metropolitan area and, by extension, a cultural hub for Greek Orthodox faithful across El Paso, Las Cruces and Juárez. The parish operates within the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Denver, one of eight regional metropolises overseeing Greek Orthodox communities across the United States.
Rev. Fr. Dimitrios Pappas was welcomed as the parish's full-time presiding priest in September 2024, taking over spiritual leadership and community programming after the church had previously relied on visiting or interim clergy. Ahead of this fall's festival, St. Nicholas also held a special Akathist prayer service this past July, displaying relics of St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia for public veneration.
Dancing, Music and a Marketplace of Greek Imports
Festivalgoers can expect live Greek music throughout the weekend alongside traditional folk dance performances by the Odyssey Dancers, a local troupe affiliated with the church that rehearses year-round. An Agora marketplace will offer Greek imports for browsing between meals, rounding out a schedule organizers describe as a longstanding celebration meant to share the community's history, culture and joy with the Borderland.
On the food side, the fest's staples remain intact: gyros, souvlakia, dolmathes and spanakopita, alongside the handmade pastries parish volunteers have long been known for. Church records and obituaries note that volunteers traditionally spend weeks baking baklava, kourabiedes and mamoulia in the church hall kitchen ahead of the event, a behind-the-scenes effort that underpins the festival's food offerings each year.
A Street Shared by Two Orthodox Congregations
St. Nicholas isn't the only Eastern Orthodox parish anchoring Festival Drive. St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church sits just across the street at 120 N. Festival Drive and hosts its own annual Middle Eastern cultural festival, giving the West El Paso corridor an unusual concentration of Orthodox Christian institutions each drawing crowds with multi-day cultural food celebrations.
This year's event will also include added security coordination, with local vendor Ranger Security Protection LLC signed on as an official sponsor to help manage on-site crowd safety across the outdoor festival grounds. Parish-run Greek festivals like El Paso's are common fixtures across Texas, with Austin's Transfiguration Church and Houston's Original Greek Festival — which marked its 50th anniversary in 2016, according to CultureMap Houston — serving as some of the state's longest-running parish fundraisers and cultural outreach events.
