When looking for tradition on campus, University students don’t have to look much further than Zorba’s Restaurant located at 627 E. Green St. After being in business for 40 years, it seems as though the Greek restaurant’s main dish is still doing the job — the gyro.

Matt Mortenson, who has been working at the restaurant for over 30 years and has been the owner for the past 15, explained that Zorba’s legacy is kept alive by their traditional gyros. Their legendary gyro consist of pita bread, gyros meat, cucumber sauce — or Tzatziki sauce, as it’s called in Greek — tomatoes and onions.

Zorba’s also offers several vegetables that customers can add to their gyros. Different sauces, cheeses and a spicy feta spread are other popular options that customers can add to customize their gyro.

Mortenson believes that the unique taste of the gyros and the restaurant’s homemade cucumber sauce that goes on the sandwich is what makes the dish so popular among customers.

“I’ll have people ask me for the recipe and I say, ‘No, if I tell you, I’d have to kill you,’” Mortenson said. “It’s something that’s been here forever and I think making our own sauces is one of our trademarks here.”

To accommodate the fact that many restaurants are increasing their portion sizes, Zorba’s has also done the same. Instead of having the option of a two, three or four-ounce gyro, customers now have the choice of a four, six or eight-ounce sandwich.

The gyros, which are 80 percent beef and 20 percent lamb, are already made into cones when they’re delivered to the restaurant. They’re then roasted on a vertical broiler, or “gyros machine” as Mortenson calls it.

“We actually used to build our own when I first worked here, which was a really interesting job,” Mortenson said. “I could still do it if I had to, but it’s just a more consistent product now.”

Consistent taste and the tradition of the restaurant are very important to Mortenson. He explained that even though many establishments are trying to create something new for their menus, Zorba’s is doing just the opposite. After a 2011 fire damaged the restaurant, it was reopened with a new layout, but the food stayed the same. By always using the same recipes, Zorba’s is able to keep their returning customers satisfied and their reputation on campus alive and well.

However, that doesn’t mean that Mortenson is reluctant to try a few new things with the gyros. For example, when ordering a combo meal with fries, customers can ask for the fries to be placed inside the gyro.

Mortenson explained that, in the past, he has also experimented with the pita bread that’s used for the gyros by using it for items such as egg sandwiches.

Mortenson said some customers are uneasy about eating a traditional gyro because it contains lamb meat. Therefore, in order to accommodate more people, chicken gyros are also offered by the restaurant.

“We’ve had the chicken gyros for several years, it’s really popular,” Mortenson said. “It’s not super spicy but we usually make it with a honey dijon sauce that we make ourselves. That sauce to me is like the best honey dijon I’ve ever had in my life, so I put it on all kinds of things.”

Mortenson is ultimately trying to keep the tradition of the restaurant alive while giving alumni a familiar place to return to when they come back to campus. By creating the same gyros they’ve always had and a similar atmosphere, Mortenson makes Zorba’s “a place people can come back to.”

Zorba’s is open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Taylor can be reached at [email protected].