Two Greektown favorites torn down, exposing old mural — and changing face of neighborhood

A mural on a wall that once was part of the Pegasus restaurant in Greektown. The restaurant closed in 2017 and the site was recently reduced to rubble. | Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

In 1990, Yiannis Melidis hired a Serbian painter to create a mural that would stretch along an inside wall of Pegasus, the Greek restaurant he was building.

The artist came at night after construction workers left. Yiannis and his wife, Maria provided him with a picture book of the Greek islands for inspiration and obliged a request from the artist to provision him nightly with a six pack of Old Style and several polish sausages from vendors on nearby Maxwell Street.