{"id":303256,"date":"2026-07-22T21:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303256\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T21:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:29:11","slug":"its-a-great-bike-lane-king-souvlaki-abandons-astoria-lawsuit-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303256\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a Great Bike Lane’: King Souvlaki Abandons Astoria Lawsuit Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owners of Astoria\u2019s renowned King Souvlaki food truck took the city to court<\/a> last year to stop the city from installing a protected bike lane<\/a> on 31st Street \u2014 but now, they\u2019re supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good setup and we get to stay in the spot we\u2019ve been at since 1979. \u2026 It\u2019s a great bike lane, I like it,\u201d said Lampros Tsampas, whose family-owned food truck was one of several 31st Street merchants that sued to stop the project last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"Get us rewrite: King Souvlaki was on the first lawsuit to stop the 31st Street bike lane, but not on the second. Queens Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n

After a Queens judge ordered<\/a> the city to halt work on the bike lane in December, the Mamdani administration regrouped with a \u201cnew,\u201d and longer, version<\/a> of the project that Department of Transportation contractors installed this year from Northern Boulevard to Newtown Avenue. Parking-protected bike lanes now run on both sides of the two-way roadway, cutting between King Souvlaki and the sidewalk at 31st Street and 31st Avenue. <\/p>\n

Bike lane opponents sued the city again last week \u2014 but King Souvlaki was not on the suit<\/a>, Tsampas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not a part of it,\u201d Tsampas said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to continue making this whole big thing and keep fighting. It was just to be able to stay there, in some capacity, for our livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from fighting the new lane, in fact, King Souvlaki is advertising to cyclists with a tongue-and-cheek \u201ccaution sign\u201d that advises passing two-wheelers, \u201cSlow down and grab a gyro!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The signs outside of King Souvlaki reminding cyclists to slow down \u2014 and stop for a gyro. Photo: Emily Smith<\/p>\n

Tsampas said that he and his family initially joined the initial lawsuit because they worried the bike lane would force them to move their truck from the intersection they\u2019ve occupied since first opening nearly 50 years ago. He believed that no one at DOT or the community board was concerned about his business.<\/p>\n

In fact, DOT and the local officials were concerned about everyone\u2019s safety: From 2021 to 2025, there were 502 reported traffic injuries stemming from crashes on 31st Street, plus two pedestrian fatalities. DOT studies have repeatedly shown that protected bike lanes reduce severe traffic injuries and deaths by as much as 18 percent in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a problem with the bike lane. The bike lane\u2019s fine. It\u2019s better. I get it. For safety reasons, obviously it\u2019s better. Never opposed that,\u201d Tsampas said. \u201cI wanted to be sure that we would be able to operate in a spot where my father built that business for nearly 50 years. We didn\u2019t know what was going to happen back then. We were afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The extended 31st Street protected bike lane proposed by DOT<\/a> shortly after Mayor Mamdani took office will eventually extend between Northern Boulevard and 20th Avenue. DOT said in a recent court filing that it does not plan to install the northernmost stretch between Newtown Avenue and 20th Avenue until next year.<\/p>\n

King Souvlaki did have to move after DOT installed the bike lane \u2014 but just by a few feet. The truck now sits in a metered parking lane, separated from the curb by the bike lane and a narrow painted buffer instead of flush with the curb like it was before.<\/p>\n

\"\"The bike lane in front of the King Souvlaki food truck. Photo: Emily Smith<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were fine with it and just want people to be careful,\u201d said Tsampas.<\/p>\n

Customers visiting the truck to get lunch on Monday agreed that there is enough space for both cyclists to enjoy the lane and for customers to enjoy their food. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the people are aware enough to not be standing in the bike lane. It\u2019s spacious enough,\u201d said Debbie Walter, who stopped at the truck while doing her laundry.<\/p>\n

Despite what Tsampas insists was only a minor role in the legal drama, King Souvlaki earned the ire of bike lane supporters, some of whom organized a boycott of the truck and other businesses involved in the lawsuit. The boycott caused the truck \u201ca lot of stress\u201d \u2014 even if it didn\u2019t impact business, Tsampas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople thought we were the face in this. Running things. We weren\u2019t. We were part of it. Sure. I get it. But we weren\u2019t the face of this,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it was more of a misunderstanding. But, thankfully, we\u2019re doing OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owners of Astoria\u2019s renowned King Souvlaki food truck took the city to court last year to stop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-303256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}