Loumidis: From the loft of the Stadium to the window of the University

By George Lampiris

Several decades have passed since the time when Loumidis’s loft was the hangout of the intellectual men of the time, where Varnalis, Elytis, Sinopoulos, Valaoritis, Gatsos and Hatzidakis frequented. The Loumidis brothers’ shop was then located on Stadiou Street, where in the store, apart from the ground floor gathering place, there was also the famous loft, which went down in history and accompanied the Loumidis family and the business route even today.

Step to take away

Now, the younger generation of the family decided to take a new step and in its store located at the junction of Aiolou and Panepistimiou streets in Omonia, it created a point of sale for its standing and passing customers, opening a window for the service of the public on the street. University. In the near future it is expected to start cooperation with the distribution platforms Wolt and efood so that Loumidis can serve the delivery in the cafe.

Thus, the University store enters a new era as it takes a step in the extraction of coffee with service to the customer in the form of take away. As Iason Loumidis, commercial director of the company, noted about this step on the part of the company, the store has, among other things, a pilot character and will be a future guide. Depending on the progress of the project, further decisions will be made on whether the company will consider the creation of a similar form of coffee points in the hand and in other stores.

The activity of the Loumidis family

Currently, the Loumidis family maintains stores outside Omonia and in Piraeus, at the junction of Tsamadou and Gounari streets, which is housed in a listed building and is rented by the Haragionis group.

At the same time, he maintains three different companies led by his family members, namely Jason, Nikolas and Aristidis Loumidis. The first of them, called Kafekopteia Loumidi EPE, is located at 106 Aiolou Street, where the Omonia store is housed, with a turnover of 1.2 million euros in 2020 and a loss of 61 thousand euros before taxes, against 1.5 million euros which was in 2019 with profits before taxes of 2 thousand euros.

The family also includes the company Kafekopteia Loumidi SA, which includes the sector of industrial activity in coffee processing, whose facilities are located in Menidi. The same company is the one that manages the stores on Komninon Street in Thessaloniki, Ermou Street in Maroussi, Grypari Street in Kallithea and the National Resistance in Peristeri. The company had a turnover of 3.6 million euros with losses before taxes of 256.4 thousand euros in 2020, from 4.49 million euros which was its turnover in 2019 with profits before taxes of 15 thousand euros.

As far as Piraeus is concerned, the Loumidis family also maintains another company, which includes the store it maintains in the area where the country’s largest port is located. Its turnover amounted to 795.4 thousand euros in 2020 with profits before taxes of 43.16 thousand euros from 1.04 million euros which was its turnover in 2019 with profits of 2.5 thousand euros.

102 years of business history

The company, which is in its 102nd year, is currently run by the third generation of the Loumidis family. As far as the Omonia store is concerned, it has existed in the same place for more than 85 years.

The story of the Loumidis family began to unfold in 1919 when the brothers Antonis, Nikos and Iason opened in Piraeus the first store with general trade activity at 12 Retsina Street. This was the first point where the Loumidis had ready coffee. In particular, in 1923 the three brothers expanded in the field of coffee, while they opened a second store in Piraeus that operated exclusively as a coffee mill. During this period, “Papagalos” was created as an official brand and their blend was named “Ready Coffee Loumidis Papagalos”, while in 1987 the coffee “Loumidis Papagalos” was acquired by Nestle which continues to produce this coffee until today.