The Greeks are delightfully serious about their coffee. You only need to walk a few steps in downtown Rhodes and you’ll land on a coffee shop. But there are a few that stand out in my opinion, not least because of the people who run them. Here are my top 5. Each of these shops has easy scooter and motorcycle parking options either directly in front or across the road.
1.) Monk Coffee/The Pure Roasters, New Town
Monk opened in 2019, right before the pandemic hit, and very nearly didn’t make it past year one. “It was a little difficult because we started the shop, we started working, and at the time we start finding our balance, the pandemic came,” founder Panagiotis Aggelou told me. A strange silver lining came out of it: a takeaway-only window during lockdown that got the shop’s name in front of more people than it might otherwise have reached, crowds gathering outside for coffee in a way that, as Panagiotis put it, “wasn’t very legal, but it helped us.”
The name itself carries more thought than it first appears to. “As a monk devotes himself faithfully to God, such is our devotion to coffee,” the shop’s own menu explains. “When reversing the word monk, the word know is formed, meaning knowledge.” It’s a detail that rewards a second look, just like the monk-themed wallpaper inside.
Monk sits close enough to a Starbucks that the comparison writes itself, and Panagiotis is convinced the shop wins that comparison on smell alone. “If you go by the shop, it smells like coffee,” he said. I watched it happen firsthand: a British couple who’d planned to go to the chain instead got pulled in by the smell and ended up at Monk’s counter.
There’s a full write-up on Monk Coffee/The Pure Roasters on the site, including the story behind losing two of the shop’s three founders, the pandemic survival story in full, and the day someone asked for a double espresso pulled as two separate shots rather than one drink. Worth the read, and worth the ride out.
Food gets less attention than the coffee, but it really shouldn’t. The chalkboard by the counter runs to cinnamon rolls, classic or Lotus, baguettes with ham, salami, turkey or vegetables, chicken or vegetable tortillas, waffles, and croissants. Everything in the display case looked freshly made rather than shipped in.
Monk Coffee/The Pure Roasters | Ethnarchou Makariou 14, Rhodes Town 851 00 | Open 7:30am–7pm, six days a week | monkcoffee.gr | Instagram: @monkcoffee_rhodes
2.) Unik Specialty Coffee Brewers, Old Town
Ask most people what “Unik” means and they’ll assume it’s just “unique,” styled differently. They’d be wrong. “Our last name is Kalamaras. Kalamari is like a squid,” founder Nikos Kalamaras told me. The shop’s logo is a squid wearing a coffee cup as a hat, and the “Nik” in Unik has nothing to do with his first name at all. It’s one of the best pieces of branding I’ve come across on the island, and almost nobody clocks it on a first visit.
The colour scheme is just as deliberate. Nikos worked with a friend who owns one of the biggest paint companies in Greece to land on the shop’s signature pink, chosen specifically because, as he put it, “this pink is easily attractive… let’s say for the woman side.”
There’s no menu anywhere on the wall, and that’s intentional. “We have a lot of repeaters,” Nikos said. “Just with a smile, just with a good morning in Greek, it’s easy to know what they want.” For everyone else, the team simply takes the time to ask. It’s part of a wider philosophy Nikos summed up simply: “The first thing they have in their mind is coffee, nothing else, not even their children.” He said it about Greek coffee culture generally, but it might as well be the shop’s mission statement.
The full write-up covers the brothers’ split roles behind the counter, why the shop barely leans on tourism at all despite Rhodes being one of the most visited islands in Greece, and what Nikos actually recommends you order if you only have time for one coffee on the island. Read the full story on the site.
Food is a real part of the offer too, “Specialty Coffee, Brunch, Bites, Vibes,” reads the shop’s own Instagram bio, and it isn’t overselling it. The display case ran to chocolate brownies, blondies, a flapjack, a bagel, wraps, and stacked sandwiches on the day I visited, alongside the homemade halva regulars still point newcomers toward, a traditional Greek sweet that’s become something of a signature here.
Unik Specialty Coffee Brewers | Amerikis 42, Rhodes 851 00 | Open Mon–Fri 7:30am–7:30pm, Sat 8am–6pm, closed Sunday | Instagram: @unikbrewers
3.) Bible Coffee, Old Town
Bible Coffee sits in Rhodes Old Town, and the name isn’t a gimmick, it’s the whole reason the shop exists. I found out about this charming place during a chat with Marianna, the owner, over a nice and strong Lavazza espresso. What followed was a quietly heartfelt account of how the shop came into her life.
When Marianna’s father died, she couldn’t afford therapy, so she bought a Bible instead. “I didn’t have hope for tomorrow,” she told me. “I couldn’t see the light in the tunnel. It was very dark for me.” Reading the Psalms daily became the thing that got her through. “He was giving me hope for tomorrow.”
Six or seven years into that daily practice, she started posting about it on socials, then started a blog while she was living in Belgium. When she moved back home to Rhodes, the coffee shop was meant to be an extension of her writing, the idea being that she could write in her downtime with the coffee shop being like a home office. It didn’t work out that way. “I didn’t know that I will make more coffees than I’m going to write. I don’t have the time to write now.”
The shop opened three years ago and it’s one of the few places in the Old Town open all year rather than just through summer. “I choose to be open the whole year,” she said. Off-season, the crowd shifts toward renovation workers and locals running errands rather than tourists. “We have a lot of workers here…and the local people, because the supermarket is open, the barber is open. So they come here.”
Despite years of building an online following through the blog and YouTube, almost nobody finds the shop through that history. “They don’t find me from the blog,” Marianna said. “They find me from Google Maps.” She makes a habit of asking each new customer how they found the place, partly out of curiosity, partly because she wants the conversation. A recurring theme in the answers: people specifically searching out something independent.
Marianna said in closing, “the concept of the shop is to love your neighbour as yourself… I want to get to know the people that come here…a lot of people come here and we have a conversation.”
Reviews consistently mention the warmth and personality of the place and it’s not difficult to see why. And it helps that the shop is a little bit away from the hustle of the main thoroughfare of the Medieval old town.
Bible Coffee | 1 Platonos Street, Rhodes Old Town | Open Mon–Sat 8:30am–4:30pm, closed Sunday | Instagram: @biblecoffee_rhodes
4.) Terrace Coffee & Snacks, Rhodes Town
Stavros has been running Terrace Coffee & Snacks since 2016, alongside his wife Fedra, both of them behind the counter most days. Ten years in, his approach hasn’t shifted an inch. “I have my standard and I don’t go right or left,” he told me. “I only care about the quality.”
That standard shows up in small refusals more than big statements. He described suppliers trying to swap in frozen substitutes when they’re out of the real thing. “No, take it back,” he said. “I like to say I don’t have something, rather than give you something that’s not good.” Bread gets the same treatment. “Never will you find bread from one day before. I don’t like it. I’ve got everything fresh.”
His reasoning for all of it comes down to something close to home, and that’s not a figure of speech. “Everything I want to put in my house for my children, if I put it in my house, I put it in my shop. If I don’t put it in my house, I don’t put it in my shop.” It’s a modest test, yet he describes it as absolutely uncompromising.
He’s equally proud of never cutting corners on the coffee, especially now, when he says some competitors pour a single shot into a double cup to save money. “I always do a double shot,” he said. It’s part of what’s built the shop’s reputation for warmth as much as quality, hundreds of comments online mention the service specifically, something Stavros puts down to running it as a family business rather than a transaction. “We like to see you take one coffee and feel nice. I don’t like to sell something.”
The customer base leans heavily local, offices, doctors, and shops nearby, with quieter winters once the tourists disappear, and a stranger side effect in summer: some regulars vanish too, pulled into seasonal hotel work. Stavros starts most days before 5:45am and can run until half past midnight in summer, six days a week. Sunday is the one day he holds onto.
They serve Illy beans, and a top tip: chat with Stavros and Fedra. They’re great fun and truly kind souls.
Terrace Coffee & Snacks | Ionos Dragoumi 31, Rhodes Town 85131 | Open Mon–Sat from 7am, closing time varies seasonally (as late as midnight in summer), closed Sunday | Instagram: @terrace_coffe_snacks
5.) Ara:zώ, Agiou Ioanni
Ara:zώ sits a few streets back from the busier parts of Rhodes Town, on Agiou Ioanni, in what owner Michalis Malliakas is clear is a residential neighbourhood first and a coffee destination second. Four years in, that’s not an accident. “This is like a neighbourhood, first of all, and this is the most important,” he told me. “We are not a city place, even though it’s like five minutes with a scooter. We are not looking to make it to be…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but the meaning was obvious enough. Tourists are welcome, mostly people staying in nearby Airbnbs, but the shop isn’t built to chase them. “We like to have tourists, but we don’t want to shout it in the face. It’s good if they want to find us.”
The name carries the same idea. Αράζω is common Greek slang for chilling out, taking it easy, no particular urgency, rooted originally in an older word for a boat dropping anchor in a harbour. It shows up again in the logo: a traditional wooden kafenio chair, illustrated with its legs crossed the way a relaxed person sits. A subtle visual wink from a shop that prides itself on keeping things unfussy.
The coffee itself comes from Create, a roaster out of Athens connected to someone Michalis referred to as Stefanos. It’s not Greek-grown beans, but the drink most people order here is about as Greek as it gets. Michalis talked me through the freddo cappuccino with real care, the foam needs to be strong and slightly bitter on top, smoother underneath, sipped through a straw. “This is the most common coffee in Greece,” he said. I’d actually been drinking the same style every day since Nikos at Unik first put me onto it, and hearing Michalis explain the technique behind it filled in a few gaps.
What I really liked was how generously Michalis talked about a shop that could easily be treated as competition. Unik, a short walk away, came up entirely unprompted, and he had nothing but praise for it. “They have a very good grinder, one of the best in the market. Their ice is better than ours too, because we don’t have an ice machine, we buy ice, which isn’t as good.” It’s a minor admission, but not one you’d expect many business owners to make about a competitor’s approach.
Ara:zώ runs a dual identity through the day. Coffee service closes around eight in the evening, and the space shifts into something closer to a bar afterward. On the day I visited, Michalis mentioned a party planned for the following Monday, set to match the rhythms of the local crowd the shop caters to.
Ara:zώ | Agiou Ioanni 156, Rhodes 851 00 | Coffee service runs until around 8pm, opening time 8am | Instagram: @ara.zo.ara
