Sturt Street’s ever evolving European deli – Eat Drink West

Olive Grove’s secret to multi-generational retailing

RICH history and a love for local produce are the pillars of family-owned and longstanding delicatessen, the Olive Grove.

A third-generation descendant of Greek migrants, Pete Marios said his family business had originally begun as a fruit shop and deli situated further down on Ballarat’s main strip.

“We’ve been on Sturt Street for 50 years with three generations and it was the early 90s when we built this spot from scratch,” he said.

“It was a big family affair and then Ange and I came back after having kids when my father passed and bought the business about three years ago.

“Even our oldest daughter has started doing some work for us and a lot of the staff have been here for a long time, it’s a bit like family, same with the customers who come in here.”

With a wide and eclectic variety of deli goods, dry stock and ready-made meals, Mr Marios said they are always trialling new things while supporting local businesses.

“We have as much local stuff as we can, but we also outsource a lot of stuff because we want to be really specific,” he said.

“We try to get a lot of different people’s products in like Yendon tomatoes, Meredith Dairy, Warrnambool cheeses, Daylesford stock, Red Rock Grampians stuff, it’s nice to be able to support them.

“It’s a trial and error thing, we’re always trying new things… it’s seasonal, like during winter we’ll go for fresh pasta and that slows down so we have to keep evolving and changing.”

Described by the owners simply as a delicatessen first with a café on the side, Olive Grove has established itself as a space for residents to source both staple and rare ingredients.

“You can tell people are reading the recipes in the newspaper because people will come in all at once to get something really specific like preserved lemons or paella rice,” Mr Marios said.

“We try to do what we do and do it really well and try to keep progressing things.

“We provide someone with the ingredients and a catalyst to try something a little different in the kitchen, hopefully someone here would be able to help you find the ingredients and talk you through how to do it.”