Iconic downtown Fresno restaurant George’s closes. ‘With deepest gratitude’

There was a time when Fresno had so many George’s restaurants people couldn’t keep them sorted.

True story: It was a whole deal when George’s won its category in the California Restaurant Association’s Best of the Valley awards in 2007, because they weren’t sure which restaurant people meant. There were three George’s at the time, including a flagship location, which had been in downtown Fresno since the 1980s and inside the Galleria at Civic Center Square for two decades at that point.

On Wednesday, George’s Shish Kebab (that one, inside the Galleria) announced it would be closing after “years and years and years of support,” owner Fred Ghiassi told The Fresno Bee.

Ghiassi bought the restaurant in 2024 and had hoped to keep it operating unchanged.

But things have changed and he’s stepping away from the restaurant due to health concerns and as a retirement of sorts, he said, though still owns Tah Deeg, a Persian restaurant at Sierra Vista Mall in Clovis.

That restaurant will remain open.

Ghiassi thanked the community for supporting him and the other owners of George’s over the years “from my heart.”

George’s Shish Kebab, a Fresno original

George’s is named for George Karoyan, who immigrated to the U.S. from Soviet Armenia in the late 1970s. His first restaurant (at Ventura and L streets) was a small spot, known for shish kebab sandwiches but also lulu kebabs and other Armenian dishes (Karoyan having worked in restaurants before immigrating).

According to a Fresno Bee story from 1991, people knew to get to George’s before noon, lest they find a line out the door. Even then, “often you couldn’t see to find a seat because the steam from the grill and the griddle and the soup pot was so thick.”

The family ran a second restaurant, Sassoon’s at Cedar and Shields avenue, though the two were eventually consoldated as George’s Bar and Grill, which remains open at Blackstone and Herndon avenues.

George’s Shish Kebab downtown moved from its Ventura location to the “uptown swellegant new Galleria location” in 1986, according to a story in The Bee. And “tongues wagged like butterflies stuck in a honeypot.” In other words, the new spot was chic and swank, with a “trendy bistro ambience” that some worried would ruin “one of the last bastions of authentic Armenian cuisine.”

The restaurant closed Friday, Ghiassi said.

This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 3:00 PM.