Dimitra Khan never intended to run a restaurant. A native New Yorker with a passion for Greek food, she and her husband Amjad opened the Euro Bakery Café in 2009 as a bakery with a few sandwiches.

But before long, customers were asking for traditional Greek fare and the café evolved into an all-in-one bakery, café and restaurant.

“People come in and they dine, and they still buy their celebratory desserts and cakes from us,” Dimitra said.

She said the restaurant’s quality of food and customer service set it apart from other Greek restaurants. Two of her four children—Mussa and Warda—work at the restaurant from time to time, she said, learning life lessons while creating a family atmosphere customers enjoy.

The family-friendly ambience extends to the way the Khans interact with their employees and their customers.

“We have customers who have come since day one,” Amjad said. “Since we’ve opened up in 2009, we see those people on a weekly basis. And that’s a real honor when you’re not sick and tired of our food and you keep coming.”

The care the couple pays to its family spreads to the quality of the cuisine. The restaurant’s chocolate cakes are baked with real Belgian chocolate and homemade buttercream, while cucumbers for the homemade tzatziki sauce—as well as bell peppers, eggplant and tomaotes during the summer months—come from the family’s own organic garden.

“We, ourselves, like to eat in family-owned restaurants so we know the importance of customer service and quality,” Dimitra said. “We would never bring food out to someone’s table that we wouldn’t eat ourselves.”

The couple emphasizes quality ingredients and healthy eating with its meals as the restaurant does not use fryers, does not cook with trans fats and refuses to cut corners. Instead of fries as a side, Euro Bakery serves baked pita chips with olive oil and herbs.

“[This is] one of the healthiest concepts of Greek food,” Amjad said. “We eat everything in here, my kids, my family. My brothers and sisters come and eat here all the time. So we feed [our customers] what we eat.”

Dimitra said she has had a passion for cooking since she was young, watching cooking shows on PBS. But it was not until she and her husband married in 1996 that she really started cooking. When the couple moved to Texas in 2001 to be closer to his family, they noticed a lack of quality bakeries in the area.

“You find the best food from any ethnicity, whatever you want to eat, you find the best over there [in New York],” she said. “When we moved here, everything was so corporate. There weren’t really small businesses or small restaurants, so we missed that, and so we thought it would be a good idea to open a [bakery].”

First known as a bakery, the couple said its Greek custard pie, chocolate cakes and cookies are all popular.

Aside from its famous desserts, the restaurant offers some distinctive lunch and dinner items. Euro Bakery Café serves traditional Greek dishes, such as moussaka, pastitsio, spanakopita and gyros, but also some distinctive courses, such as the exotic chicken souvlaki, lamp chops and Alaskan salmon.

“We’re probably one of the only [local restaurants] to serve wild salmon, and it really is wild,” she said.

The Khans said they already host large events and hope to add a party hall next door soon to cater to groups of 100 or more. The couple said they are also considering adding more locations.

From the menu

• Exotic chicken souvlaki: Grilled chicken breast marinated in spices and served over basmati rice. ($9.99–$14.99).
• Lamb chops: Three grilled lamp chops marinated in Greek spices and served over basmati rice. ($17.99).
• Greek custard pie: Phyllo dough crust filled with custard and honey. ($24.99).

Cooking classes

Euro Bakery Café offers cooking classes once or twice a month from 3–5 p.m. on Saturdays, while classes are also taught to private groups. Classes are $50, which includes demonstrations, participation, copies of the recipes and generous samplings of the dishes. For more cooking tips from Dimitra Khan, visit her cooking blog at www.dimitrasdishes.com.

Euro Bakery Café5010 Louetta Road Spring • 281-257-3023www.eurobakery-cafe.comHours: Mon.–Sat. 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–6 p.m.