Walking down Dragatsaniou, just off Klafthmonos Square, the change is impossible to miss. In the past six months alone, six new businesses have opened, while others are still under construction. Scaffolding, drills and the promise of “an all-day spritzer bar,” as one worker casually puts it, signal a street very much in flux. 

Linking Stadiou Street with Evripidou, Dragatsaniou once captured the optimism of the 1950s, when electronics shops and transport offices defined its commercial identity. Older tenants still recall the crowds that flowed daily through the street and the adjoining Tristrato Arcade, a maze of passages with multiple entrances and even ancient walls hidden in its basement. For years, that bustle faded. Recently, however, a new wave – seemingly radiating out from nearby Agioi Theodoroi Square – has brought restaurants, bakeries, cafés and bars back into the area.

The First New Tenants

At Deux Amis, the day begins early. Naturally leavened, slow-fermentation bread made exclusively with organic flours and much more fill the shelves: Parisian baguettes, olive fougasse, loaves studded with dried fruit and nuts, sandwich loaves made from 100% zea flour, and sourdough Thessaloniki koulouria coated in unhulled sesame. Upstairs, handmade puff pastry turns into cheese pies, their buttery aroma spilling into the street. 

“I had been looking for a downtown location for a long time,” says Stefanos Livanios, known from Tromero Paidi in Ilissia. “For someone to open downtown, they need to have something to say. After years of work with Tromero Paidi, I felt ready.” He was among the first newcomers, securing his lease before interest surged.

“No one applied during the first EFKA tender round for these properties. During the second, there were just three of us. Now everything’s rented,” explains the baker, who leased the space last October. “People make cities. Omonia once teemed with life, then it emptied out. Things move in cycles.”

Further along, tables fill the arcade at Hafu, now open for lunch as well as dinner. Servers move back and forth against the backdrop of the Byzantine chapel of Aghioi Theodoroi, bathed in winter sunlight. The menu also evoke a bright winter day: bonito in mandarin broth, wild-greens salad with chestnuts and xinotyro, and a popular donburi with kefalos bourdetto, pairing Japanese technique with Greek flavors. 

Hafu was another early arrival. While restoring the space, the team uncovered old signage from its electronics-shop past, a reminder of an era when the arcade was dominated by tech retailers. A few still remain. Others have given way to nightlife-leaning concepts, such as DR.8, a recent opening that blurs the line between pizza bar and club, complete with a doorman and crowds spilling onto the pavement.

Deeper into Dragatsaniou

Deeper inside the arcade, Lefteris Tsakonas represents a different continuity. His family’s copy shop, Technofos, has operated here for more than 50 years. He recalls a time when Dragatsaniou functioned as a transport hub. “Everything passed through here. It was so packed with people, you couldn’t move through the arcade,” he says, laughing as he recounts childhood memories of getting lost in the crowds. 

Tsakonas doesn’t blame the area’s decline on the financial crisis alone. “Owners retired. Their children didn’t want the business.” As for the new dining boom, he is ambivalent. “It brings people, yes. But it feels geared to tourists. No new crafts or trades, and prices that don’t speak to us.” 

Nearby, Artemis Antiques feels suspended in time. Coins, banknotes, military medals from World War I and II, tin toys from the 1950s and other collectibles fill the impressive wooden display cases, inherited from Mara’s former cashmere shop. Owner Giorgos, a mathematician by training, has been running the shop with his daughter Despina for the past eight years.

Others see opportunity in the shift.

“When I arrived in 2024, almost none of the new shops existed. I don’t know how much of this will last or what shape it will take, but it’s certainly interesting because it draws people back to this neighborhood,” says graphic designer Rallou Kondyli, owner of the independent clothing label NIATA. “I decided to open my own space on Dragatsaniou because I really like arcades, and it saddens me that in Greece we don’t use them as much as abroad. This one is bright, architecturally beautiful, and the rents were still reasonable ,” she says. Her favorite time is when the international Athens Art Book Fair takes over the Tristrato Arcade. 

In the basement, Fro & Co Wines stores and presents low-intervention Georgian wines, taking advantage of the naturally cool, stable conditions. The space doubles as a tasting room, adding another layer to the arcade’s evolving ecosystem.

What’s Next

At one of the arcade exits, final preparations are underway for Solène. By day, it will operate as a boulangerie and patisserie, with breads, viennoiseries and pastries by Alexandros Koufas (formerly of the Hotel Grande Bretagne by night), a French brasserie curated by Alexandros Tsiotinis, serving classics from bouillabaisse to coq au vin. In the kitchen, stocks simmer and roosters marinate, while drills buzz from the neighboring space; a fitting soundtrack for a street still very much under construction.