To Meli’s business has been massively successful, with revenues up almost 300 percent from 2013 to 2024, according to their financial accounts. Their neighbour, the Greek-owned Papillon, has seen its revenue climb by four times, Vassilis Tsourapis, the manager of the café, told POLITICO.
Tsourapis, like many of the staff members, ended up working at Papillon through a family relation. Another waiter at To Meli is the owner’s cousin.
Everything and nothing
Greek coffee culture is fundamentally not about speed, efficiency or even caffeine. Italians famously drink their coffee at the bar, standing up, whether it’s a shot of espresso or the longer milk-laden cappuccino.
In Greece, coffee is a decidedly social affair, perhaps the most intimate activity that involves patronizing an establishment. The act of “going for coffee,” or pame gia kafe, lets you focus on your interlocutor. It can be roughly interpreted as: “Let’s sit for several hours, sipping our freddo and talk about everything and nothing.” It’s the type of conversation that happens once the stresses of work and the city have melted away and your mind stops racing to keep up with your to-do list.
That’s not quite what happens at To Meli on a weekday, but the whiff of that ambience is what attracts the chronically overworked Eurocrats.
The coffee itself reflects this fact. The most popular drinks for warm summer days, freddo espresso and cappuccino, contain two shots of espresso – be warned – shaken, not stirred, over a lot of ice.