Hermes Coffee Shop in Mytilene

At the end of Ermou street it is located Hermes Coffee Shop one of the most historic cafes Island's. THE Kyveli Spanoudaki-Laskari, a beautiful Mytilene, current owner of the store, tells us:

"In 1922, with the exchange of populations, my grandfather, George Spanoudakis, came from Asia Minor and bought this cafe from a Turk and renamed it Hermes. Not much has changed. Serve coffees, ouza and hookahs as before ".

In fact, he showed us a sign of the time where the "playing card invoice" was written in both languages, as until 1922 the clientele was from both ethnicities.

"There were many cafes in the Agora of Mytilene. Each of them had a frequent clientele. In Panhellenic the pensioners, the bourgeoisie, doctors, lawyers, merchants, in "Giubeka" the working class. In the cafe "Hermes", mainly the Arabatzides, because here was the starting point of the Arabadas. From then on, the cafe started working at five in the morning, for the workers' coffees, later it had ouzo with appetizers, and at noon it had lunch ”.

In 1997 the cafe was taken over by Kyveli from her father, who had rented it for a while. He found it in a bad mess, and renovated it as faithfully as he could. Besides, she had spent all her childhood here helping her father and she had strong memories and experiences.

Today's Hermes coffee shop offers as always morning coffees, but has evolved into one excellent tavern-restaurant, for lunch but also for dinner. The appetizers are many, salty, seafood, cooked and my preferences are pumpkin flowers, the sponge (its preparation by the hands of Kyveli and its recipe is in delicacies of Lesvos) and the wine spleen. The atmosphere of the store is unique and takes you back years, as the furniture, the decoration, the mirrors, the frames are all of the time, and of great taste.

It is no coincidence that Hermes cafe-restaurant is the first gastronomic station of those who visit Mytilene. And Kyveli compensates them with the above.