L-R: Anna Vergos, John Vergos, and Tina Jennings.
Just in time for the holidays, the Rendezvous is offering three take-home products: “Rendezvous Marinade,” “Rendezvous Greek Seasoning,” and “Nick’s Salt & Pepper Blend.”
All are used at the restaurant, founded in 1948 by the late Charlie Vergos, and one of them — the Greek seasoning — was used by Charlie’s wife, the late Tasia Vergos, as well as her forebears.
Tasia, who was known as “Yia Yia” (“grandmother” in Greek), was still preparing meals for her family in her kitchen at home in her nineties. And she was still wearing her white cotton apron with a flower print on it while she showed her grandchildren how to cook.
Charlie cooked at the downtown restaurant, but Tasia was the one who prepared the family dinners as well as the Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving dinners for her husband and her three children: John Vergos, Tina Jennings, and the late Nick Vergos.
Or, as John says, “My dad was the cook. And my mom was the chef.”
photograph courtesy the vergos family
Tasia Vergos
His dad already knew how to cook when he opened the restaurant, says John, who, along with his sister, Tina, are among the family owners of The Rendezvous. “He grew up in a diner,” he says. “His father owned a diner. So, he knew how to make chili and beef stew and soups and pastas.”
Charlie came up with his first sauce, now called the “Rendezvous Marinade,” when he began cooking ribs in the restaurant basement. “He began basting them with a vinegar solution. Salt, salt, pepper, garlic, and oregano was sprinkled on after the cooking. The same way we do now.”
In the early to mid 1950s, Charlie went to New Orleans “and discovered all those good Cajun spices. He came back and mixed them with the Greek spices that he was using already. And that was the original Rendezvous seasoning or dry rub.”
Tasia “cooked independently” of his father, John says. “To the best of my knowledge, I never saw my dad cook at home.”
“Tasia told us not to add seasoning or sauce. She liked to taste the meat and didn’t want the sauce or seasoning to overpower it. — Anna Vergos
Anna Vergos, one of the grandchildren who grew up sitting on the kitchen counter watching Tasia cook, says, “She actively showed us how to do everything, because Greek recipes are not easy. At least hers weren’t. So, it took us multiple times to really learn how to make spanakopita or her Christmas cookies. Anything she made. And she didn’t have anything written down.”
Tasia had a lot to do with “Nick’s Salt & Pepper Blend.” His mother didn’t use cheaper-priced commercial salt or pepper. John remembers her saying, “You always buy good salt, good pepper. Grind it up.”
She used the salt and pepper individually. But Nick just mixed everything together. “There’s a ratio to it that Nick kind of figured out.”
Her grandmother didn’t use Rendezvous barbecue sauce on her ribs, Anna recalls. “It’s funny. When she would come down here to eat ribs she liked them plain” with just the vinegar-based basting solution cooked over charcoal. “She told us not to add seasoning or sauce. She liked to taste the meat and didn’t want the sauce or seasoning to overpower it,” Anna says, adding, “When she cooked — I think of her pork tenderloin — it was usually just olive oil, lemon, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.”
Those are the same ingredients in the “Rendezvous Greek Seasoning,” John says. “We just bottled up what she used.”
Tasia’s spacious kitchen at their home on Houston Levee Road included her grandmother’s dining room table, where she and Charlie would sit and read the paper or serve casual family dinners. That was separate from the formal dining room. Framed prints of horses were on either side of a framed landscape. Cookbooks, including ones from Better Homes & Gardens and Southern Living, lined Tasia’s kitchen counter.
Tina fondly remembers her mother’s tiropitakia, which are “triangle cheese puffs with a filo pastry” as one of the Christmas Eve appetizers. Tasia also served prime rib and a variety of Greek items, including dolmades, “meat and rice stuffed grape leaves with lemon sauce on top.”
Her mother always included her home-made bread, which was “more like a white, buttery — but not too buttery — bread.” It was “just a perfect combination of butter, a little bit of sugar, salt, all that put together. And it was so good.”
In 2021, Tina compiled a cookbook of her mother’s recipes to give to the eight grandchildren at Christmas. “She was in the hospital the week of Christmas, so she wasn’t able to be with us.”
But, she says, “While she was in the hospital, I put one together and I gave it to her so she was able to see it.”
Her mother was “beyond emotional” when she received it, Tina says. Tasia died the following February.
When they were cleaning out her mother’s house, Tina’s daughter, Kristina Jennings, discovered a treasured item. “My daughter came across my mother’s apron. And what’s interesting is all the grandchildren remember her in that apron.”
Tina says, “It’s got stripes on it, but it’s got flowers on it. Pale blue, pink, peach colors. The white is not as stark white as it probably was at one time.”
They didn’t have to think long about what to do with the apron. “We both agreed to put it in a frame.” Tina included a photo of her mother preparing spanakopita at Christmas time with the cookbook, titled Yia Yia’s Recipes. “And she is wearing her apron.”
On the front of the cookbook is a Georg Shook painting of Tasia’s home in Greece, and the words — in Greek — “With Love.”
To order these bottled seasonings and other Rendezvous products, call 888-464-7359 or visit hogsfly.com.
