Alexandra and John Vlahos are shown in the early days of Vlahos Original Greek Gyros, which turns 50 this year.

People associate certain sounds with county fairs.

In the junior fair barns, it’s the moos, whinnys and clucks of the various animals. In the grandstand, it’s the colliding metal of auto bodies at the demolition derby or the hooves on the dirt track for harness racing.

And on the midway — at least in the Mahoning Valley — it’s the booming voice of John Vlahos hawking gyros.

One of those sounds will be missing this summer. Vlahos died Dec. 13, 2025, at age 80. But his wife, Alexandra, who’s been a part of Vlahos Original Greek Gyros from its inception, and their three children plan to continue the business, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2026.

“It was so overwhelming when he passed away, just to read thousands of comments (from customers, friends and associates),” his daughter, Eleanna Hall, said. “You don’t think of the impact that a small business can have on a community.”

Vlahos Original Greek Gyros didn’t start in a trailer, but in a brick-and-mortar restaurant. George’s was a diner in a triangle-shaped building at the corner of Elm Road NE and High Street NE, where John Vlahos served traditional diner food and some dishes from his native Greece.

Alexandra was working at another restaurant downtown when John stopped in to talk to the owner.

“He goes, ‘Who is she?” Alexandra said. “He said, ‘She came from Greece, and she’s working here.’ ‘Not for long,’ (John replied). I went there in March (to work) and in September we got married.”

That was 53 years ago. A couple of years later, one of the regulars at George’s asked if they were going to set up at the Trumbull County Fair. Alexandra thought it was a silly idea, but they decided to check it out and were impressed by the size of the crowd.

That first year they set up a tent and passed out free samples to lure fairgoers, most of whom had never tasted a gyro before.

Today, most area fairs and festivals have multiple gyro vendors selling the lamb/beef loaf shaved from a rotating vertical spit and served on pita bread (with some combination of tomatoes, onion, cucumbers, sour cream and/or tzatziki sauce). At least one major fast food chain now has gyros on its menu.

In the mid ’70s, no one else was selling gyros at festivals, Alexandra said, at least not in northeast Ohio.

In addition to being a restaurateur, John was an educator, teaching generations of fairgoers the proper Greek pronunciation for gyro. It’s not pronounced “Jai-row,” like a gyroscope. It’s pronounced “Ye-row,” as John could be heard yelling from yards away, even on a crowded midway.

“A lady would come up and say, ‘Can I get a ‘jai-row?’ and he’d say,’We don’t sell jai-rows here,'” Alexandra said. “‘What do you mean you don’t sell jai-rows. What does that sign say?’ ‘We sell ye-rows,’ he’d tell them.”

After the success at the fair, they bought their first trailer and eventually had four trailers to meet demand. There were other restaurants over the years, one on High Street NW across the street from the Trumbull County Courthouse and a couple of different locations on Parkman Road NW, but fairs and festivals became the Vlahos family’s focus.

It could be grueling work. There’s not much a fan can do to offset the heat on a humid August day while working inside of a metal box. Alexandra said John regularly would dump a bottle of cold water over his bald head to try to keep cool.

And it was a true family business. Hall said there was no discussion about whether she and her siblings would work in the trailers. It was a given. Hall said it instilled a strong work ethic in them.

There were perks, too. Since her parents always needed workers for the trailers, they often hired their children’s friends. Her father tried to make the summers fun, and those busy summers provided other opportunities.

“We got to travel a lot,” Hall said. “We went to Greece multiple times. My dad used to always joke around and tell my mom and us, ‘You know, people wait to go on vacations all the time. This week, I’m taking you to the farm. Next week, I’m going to take you to a concert. The week after that, I’m going to take you to the lake.’ He turned it into more of an adventure, rather than just a job. He would say, ‘I take my wife and kids somewhere different every single weekend.’ It was hard and fun at the same time.”

She also learned a lot watching her father at work. A good product was important, but the sales pitch was as important as the quality of the ingredients to her family’s success.

“It was the experience — the hollering, the bringing the people close, making them laugh, making them feel good,” Hall said. “When you’re standing in line for 10 minutes, he’s putting on a show. You don’t care that you’re waiting in line for 10 minutes, you know.”

There was a time when they would travel several hours to work different events. Especially after it became hard to find and retain workers, the focus in recent years has been on events within a 90-minute drive of Warren. For big events like the Canfield Fair, Vlahos has all four of its trailers situated at different spots at the fairgrounds.

Hall still lives in Warren, but her sister, Maria Shields, is in Iowa, and her brother, Emmanuel Vlahos, is in Greece. All three will be back home this summer as Vlahos Original Greek Gyros celebrates its 50th anniversary. They’re planning some 50th anniversary specials, Hall said, and some other ideas are in the works to remember their father’s legacy.

Alexandra will be joining her children at the festivals as well.

“I’m not giving up,” Alexandra said. “There’s no way. I can’t. I just can’t stay still.”