Dairy Dairy "I Dorkada"

On its outskirts Ano Polis of Thessaloniki, at 91 Kassandrou Street, is the famous for its yogurt, Dorkada, the historic dairy of Thessaloniki, one of the few that survived in the city.

His story begins - as the two cousins ​​Giannides told us Gavalin who now maintain the store - the 1957 When the Uncle Tomaras from Kaloskopi, Fokida, he builds the first yogurt shop in Tsianari and in 1961 he moves it to Kassandrou, where it closed for half a century.

The name was chosen because at that time the most famous yogurts of the prefecture were made in Dorkada, in a refugee village outside Lagadas, who had come from the village of Karakotzakoi (meaning deer) in Eastern Thrace. In their new homeland they named their village "Deer" (deer species) and because it was located on the axis of the old national road Thessaloniki - Serres, the buses of the line stopped in Dorkada for the passengers to taste the famous yogurt in the adjacent taverns.

Uncle Tomaras took the name of the village Dorkas but also the art of yogurt, and he in turn became famous in Thessaloniki.

What excites you today is the vintage unpretentious atmosphere of the store, its shop windows and its products.

As if not more than 60 years have passed you will see sweets from other eras. Handmade syrupy sweets, to fill your eyes and run your saliva, all kinds of tulips, saraglia, triangles, dads (I regretted trying one!), Revani, walnut pies, galatoboureka. But also coke, fluffy millefeuille, orange pies, and the most modern cheese cake with strawberry or sour cherry.

Of course the heavy artillery of the store is the yogurt in a cup (40 tons per year), the rice pudding, the creams and the ice cream from sheep's milk.

In Dorkada, while the store is dominated by the era of the 60s, with the old refrigerators and the mechanical scales, the sweets of the pan arranged in a row, with the smells that make you dizzy, but also with the relaxed and very happy presence of Giannida is the lab things are changing. Here tradition and history marry with new technology for which the two Giannides are very proud that they put it in recent years so that the quality and production conditions are 100% guaranteed.

"The variety of our products was limited, when we took over the management in 2012, at about 1/3 compared to today. In the process it balanced and so we increased the types of products that our customers liked. And we are glad to see grandparents coming here with their grandchildren, to taste the same sweets! ”