Opening date for Oxford Greek eatery replacing vintage store

In February, vintage store Reign closed in Cowley Road after serving customers for 17 years.

The owners did not blame Low Traffic Neighbourhoods for the closure.

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Now, Klontian Meta, who runs the Love Coffee chain, is transforming the unit into a Greek restaurant called Central.

An opening date of December 10 or December 11 is planned.

Mr Meta, who grew up in Greece, said: "We are just putting the finishing touches to the restaurant - we are not far off now.

"We have an alcohol licence and we are looking forward to opening and serving traditional Greek food.

"Of course we will listen to our customers and we can try to adapt the menu to include the dishes they like."

In March last year Mr Meta, also a barber, opened his first Love Coffee  in a former flower shop in Cowley Road.

It was such a success he opened another Love Coffee shop in High Street.

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Mr Meta is originally from Albania and grew up in Greece.

The father-of-two has been living in Oxford for more than five years.

The coffee he sells at ‘competitive’ prices, combined with the feta cheese, spinach and custard pies, keeps customers coming back.

The location of the first shop half way along the Cowley Road creates a captive audience of shop and office workers and students from both universities.

Mr Meta said last year: "We are exactly half way along Cowley Road, not far from Tesco and there are lots of people around - a lot of my customers are Oxford Brookes University students.”

He added: “When you are young and positive I think you can do anything.

“Of course there is a lot of hard work involved and sometimes I am working from 6am to about 8.30pm but it’s worth it."

Now, with a new restaurant to run, he will be even busier.

"We have room for about 60 people in the restaurant," he added.

"It's a good sized unit right in the heart of the Cowley Road - that's why I'm calling it Central."

Reign was popular for many years with students and local shoppers.

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Following its closure, owners put up a notice saying: "After 17 years and much thought, we have decided that the time has come to close our doors and focus on pastures new.

"All is not lost. We look forward to welcoming you in our London stores in Soho, and newly opened 2,800 sq ft store in Stoke Newington.

"We also have an online store reignvintage.com with over 1,000 items available to buy online, and this will be developed further through the year."

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.