Beetroot

"Beetroot" is a design agency from Thessaloniki, doing some very interesting graphical art work over the years and gathering various design awards.

And this place, is basically their whole identity, turned into a coffee shop - and merchandise shop.

For the merchandise part, they stock their famous posters and various products featuring their design-cartoon characters, like their Greek yiayia (γιαγιά) one, or their cat characters. The products are cool, and might be a nice novelty for tourists to also bring home from Thessaloniki to remember.

But now, on to the coffeeshop part of this review:

I like Beetroot because of a combination of reasons:

• I like the facts that it reminds me of the Berlin-style shops of that golden age of a few years ago (back when rents were still cheap in Berlin)
• It's located in the very hip Valaoritou area, and on a nice, airy corner where you can relax and people-watch
• The coffee is consistently good. Not excellent, but it's still a level above most in the neighborhood
• It's one of the rare places these days that still has comfortable tables to sit at, without feeling cramped
• It's laptop friendly (up to a logical degree, of course. Don't expect to find a library there... [And you shouldn't anyway!])

The only minor negative, is that their food selection is unfortunately limited to a few sweets and cakes. I'd like it to have more healthy options, and also (ideally) a full kitchen.