A photo in social networks was the reason for me to leave the door of the shop located at 4 Kallergi Street in Florina. After the relevant vaccination check, the owner with a polite smile on her lips informed me that an ’exception is made in my face as men are not allowed to be alone in the café! Before I could ask, she explained that «the café is for ladies« and men can only be present on the premises under one condition: »if accompanied by a woman«.
«It is not always easy to manage this rule, but when you explain this peculiarity with courtesy and without insulting the personality of the person opposite you, i.e. the men who come alone to the room, then everything goes smoothly», explains Ms. Stergiou adding that today this peculiarity is now known and accepted by the customers of the café and «those men who want to visit us make sure they come either with their girlfriends or their partner».
Ms Stergiou explains that the idea of the women's café came about during a long break of rest and reflection, after 20 years of hard work in the hairdresser's shop that operated in the same space.
Flora Stergiou is the mother of 3 boys who now have their own lives. She remembers that when her children left home for their studies and then to serve in the army «I felt I had to channel the energy I had inside me somewhere. I wanted to do something that didn't feel like daily and often oppressive work but was something that made me feel good. As she says, the idea of the coffee shop was then born in her mind and «in March 2014 I opened the shop».
It is a tasteful space dominated by wood and white marble with colours that reflect the interiors of neoclassical buildings.
«Everything you see in the space, the furniture, the windows, the fabric lamps, the hats that are in different parts of the space, have been through my hands. But my husband also helped me to make everything as I had planned.».
Café and... workshop and cultural space
Summer in Florina passes quickly and, as the residents say, it is the shortest season. But winter is different. It is longer and when the fog that can last even a month or the snow that covers every part of the city with the thermometer permanently below zero, the days and nights are «long».
So the café is not just a place for women to meet in the long winter of Florina but also functions as a workshop or a cultural space. Ms Stergiou says that three times a week ladies come three times a week and give lessons in drawing, handicraft and knitting techniques. «Many ladies regardless of their professional occupation do not miss the class because, as they have confided to me, the activity combined with creation even works psychotherapeutically.» Other times there are book presentations while more rarely music nights have been held.
The coronavirus did not only affect people's everyday life but also made people more hesitant and more fearful and this, as he explains, can be seen in our old friends who since we reopened started coming to the café.
The visual intensity and the dynamics of the café space attracted students and professors of the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia in Florina. The most beautiful image for Ms. Stergiou is when the café space is filled with students, some at the tables, others squatting on the floor with their computers «doing part of their laboratory course here while some of them, excited by the space, exhibit their works that are part of their thesis».
Aromatic plants from the mountains and traditional sweets of Florina
Everything in the cafe is made by the hands and the passion of Mrs. Stergiou. The mountain tea is brought to her by friends who cultivate it in the mountains of Florina, the linden, the louise, the mint, the sage, the mint are grown on her estate and as she confesses all the confectionery is made by her hands. «Every week I make three or four different desserts that one can taste with their drink.» Cream royal and loukoumades syrupy with cream are the two traditional Florina sweets that Mrs Stergiou prides herself on the high quality she gives them. The café does not have the opening hours of a traditional catering establishment, on weekdays it is open from 10-13.30 and 16.00-21.30 on Saturdays it is closed and on Sundays it is only open in the afternoon.
As she said, «I received offers from people in other cities to build such a shop for them, but I refused. If I were,she added, thirty years old I would have done it. Now I am 62 and the support of my family and my peace of mind are paramount».
Sp. Koutavas
