For reasons that remain a mystery to ELV, Gyro Time on West Charleston Ave. has remained open for 30 years. This makes it, according to our calculations, the seventh oldest continuing service restaurant in Las Vegas.*

“Gyro” is properly pronounced “yee-roh” (not “gee-ro” or “jai-ro”), and is probably the most mispronounced word in the world of western food. What Gyro Time does to this noble sandwich — said to have originated with Alexander the Great — is make it as cheaply as possible; using pressed, extruded “gyro” meat (supposedly containing bits of beef, pork and lamb, but tasting of none of them.) It then shaves this wet-cardboard-looking-sandwich-meat-like-substance onto fluffy, Americanized Arabic (pita) bread; throws some onion, hothouse tomatoes and lettuce in the mix; and voila! — you’re eating Greek mediocrity — for $6.25.

The above analogy is made with all due respect, and apologies, to wet cardboard everywhere.

Actually, gyros aren’t really Greek. They descend from the Doner Kebab sandwich of Turkey. It’s the carving of roasted meats off a rotating spit that the ancient Macedonians popularized. Throwing that meat in some flatbread was probably something some sultan thought up after he tired of watching his Greek slave girls do this.

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* ELV may be mistaken, but thinks only El Sombrero (1950), Bob Taylor’s (1955), Golden Steer (1958), Chicago Joe’s (1975), Battista’s (1970), and Pamplemousse (1978), are older.

GYRO TIME

5239 West Charleston Blvd. (plus other locations)

Las Vegas, NV

702.878.6393