The shops of Ano Poli

In Kule Kafe the shops were concentrated around the square and there was also a large number of them on Apostolou Pavlou Street, but several were also south of Agiou Dimitriou Street. In Akropoli, there used to be many country taverns. People’s needs were served by an array of travelling vendors, a staple in the area until as late as the 1980s. The residents of Ano Poli would also shop at the stores in the city centre. 

Conversely, there was very little large- and small-scale industrial activity in Ano Poli. Besides the Axilithiotis machine shop in Islahane, where many Ano Poli residents worked, our research failed to locate any other labour intensive businesses.

In the spring of 1933, there was an array of shops around the public fountain in Tsinari, making it one of the Ano Poli’s most commercial areas. Dimosthenis Filoxenidis’ coffee shop ‘O Platanos’ [‘The Plane Tree’] has been around since the end of the 19th century and is open to this day as an ouzo shop named ‘Tsinari’, one of the oldest shops in Thessaloniki. Other shops in the area were the coffee shops ‘Ganochora’, owned by Labros Karabetiadis, ‘Oraia Tichi’ [‘Fair Fortune’] owned by G. Trichopoulos, and ‘Poseidon’ owned by Ilias Bairaktaris. There were the grocery shops of Nikos Alatzas, Giannis Kiakidis, Stavros Kalitsas, and Psimopoulos. There was also Ioannis Dimitriou’s bakery; three barber shops, belonging to Christos Tsomanidis or Koumpis, Vasileiadis, and Evangelos Ntouniadis; I. Bountouridis’ cobbler shop named ‘O Erotokritos’ and Emmanouil Ioannidis’ coal shop. Kostoula from Smyrna would sell tobacco and newspapers from a stall next to the fountain. There was also Parthenis Bachariadis’ pastry shop.      

The newspaper Efimeris ton Valkanion wrote about the latter: ‘Across from the coffee shop “Oraia Tichi” stands Parthenis Bachariadis’ pastry shop. When we crossed its threshold, we encountered an idyllic scene: the shop owner’s entire family unit, consisting of spouse, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and young offspring, were all in action. Each of them had a lump of dough in front of them and made pastries which were then spread out on baking dishes. There you have it, then, all you anti-feminist gentlemen who insist on women staying at home. Today’s crisis has made many women coming from even the most conservative environments share their time between the home and the shop, the workshop, and the trenches of labour’.