The owner of Taste of Europe, Valentin Tsalko, received threatening phone calls and emails about his restaurant. Due to the threats, Tsalko blacked out the word “Russian” on a sign with duct tape, added a Ukrainian flag in the window, and a “Stop War” sign can be seen in the dining room.
Located at 1901 West Pioneer Parkway in Arlington, the sign outside the business read “Restaurant, Grocery, Russian Gifts.” The word Russian can no longer be seen.
Due to the threats, the menu for the restaurant was changed as well. “We made it specific. Like, it’s a Ukrainian borscht instead of it just [saying] borscht, and we put Hungarian in front of our goulash,” Tsalko told WFAA in an interview.
Tsalko shared, “The plan was to remove all that anyway and start being really specific about the items, but this kind of escalated all that. So, we went real quick. The second it happened, everything was out.”
Pictures of their changes are on the Facebook page, Taste of Europe Restaurant and Grocery Store.
At the register, there’s a QR code that goes to a link for donations to Ukraine.
“We are on the side of Ukraine. We’re fully supporting them, and we hope the war stops really soon. Everyone’s devastated, but we’re doing what we can here in Texas to help them out. I mean, it might not be a whole lot, but we’re trying our best,” the owner stated.
Since the changes, the threats slightly slowed down but are still coming his way.
After immigrating from Belarus to Dallas, Tsalko’s grandfather Mikhail Frumkin opened the store originally at Galleria Dallas. At that time, it was a deli, bakery, and gift shop selling goods from Eastern Europe.
The business moved to Arlington in 2002, and in 2021, Tsalko became the owner of the family’s store. In the interview, Tsalko mentioned that his family has always used “Russian” due to being “a general geographic region that people easily recognized.”
He was born in Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine.
Taste of Europe sells goods from Kurdistan, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic. The restaurant’s menu contains dishes such as Polish dumplings, goulash, cabbage rolls, borscht, and stroganoff.
The business uses fresh ingredients from its personal garden when creating the dishes.
When customers walk inside, a festive atmosphere greets them, and samples of meats and caviar can be tasted. The gift shop items include handmade collectibles and jewelry, and the grocery shelves are stocked with richly-flavored food from overseas.
Guy Fieri featured Taste of Europe on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in 2012. Fieri loved the potato pancakes called kolduny.
Fort Worth Weekly named them the Best of 2007 and 2011.
On Taste of Europe’s website, a review from Thaddeus Carter says, “Very good authentic food for a good price. Everything I have tried here is good. I did not buy anything from their store, but the prices for their imported products seem very reasonable. There’s definitely nothing like it in the DFW area, so I would say try it at least once.”
With about 2,300 likes on Facebook, making changes to their establishment due to threats, and sharing their background story of who they are, “We Stand With Ukraine” is the first thing you see on their website.