A walled garden in Kalamaki, across the road from Crystal Beach, where
rescued cats live in among the tables. Thirty-four years a Greek restaurant.
A cat café since June 2025. Walk in off the road, take a table under the
vine, and order lunch. You will be sharing the furniture with the whiskered locals.
Crystal Beach Road, Kalamaki · Open 12:00–21:00, closed Wednesdays
· No booking, no entry fee · 4.8 from 533 reviews
Eat. Drink. Pet. Adopt.
In roughly that order.
1
Eat
The kitchen is smaller than it was. What comes out of it is still Greek and still made here, vegan gyros included. The tzatziki gets named in the reviews more often than we do.
2
Drink
Greek coffee, frappé, granita, matcha, fresh juice, and cocktails with names we are not going to apologise for. Ask for a Strawberry Pawjito with a straight face.
3
Pet
The garden cats decide, not you. Some will get on the chair next to yours before your coffee lands. Some will look at you all afternoon from a wall.
4
Adopt
Every cat in the catio is looking, and every one of them is vaccinated, wormed, chipped and checked. You are allowed to fly one home. We do the documents and the flight — all of it, not some of it.
What happens when you walk in
How a restaurant became this
Sakis and Dimitra ran a Greek restaurant here for thirty-four years.
People got married in this garden. Families came back the same week every summer and asked for the same table under the vine. It worked. There was no reason to stop.
They were also feeding the colonies. Helping with the trapping and the neutering, the part of it nobody photographs. And every season it went the same way: a kitten too young to release, a cat with an injury the street would finish. Those ones can't go back. They can only be fostered, and a house only holds so many.
So in June 2025 they stopped being a restaurant. The tables stayed. The garden stayed. The kitchen got smaller and the cats moved in, and Zakynthos got the first cat café it has ever had.
Sakis & Dimitra
A note for the regulars
Some of you have been coming since the nineties. You booked the table under the vine, you ordered the moussaka, and this year you arrived to a shorter menu and a garden full of cats. A few of you have said so publicly, and in writing.
That's fair, and it isn't a misunderstanding. The menu really is shorter. That is what the cats cost, and it is the best trade this garden has ever made. We would tell you so to your face, and pour you something while we did.
1991The garden opens as a restaurant
2025Zakynthos gets its first cat café
Plate i · the gatePlate ii · the shade
Two spaces, two sets of rules
The garden is open. The catio has a door.
Plate iii · the terrace
The garden
Open air, under the vine, across the road from Crystal Beach. This is where the resident cats live and there is no barrier between them and your table. You sit down, you order, and whatever happens next is up to them.
No booking. Walk in and take a table.
Nothing to pay at the gate. You pay for what you order and that's the whole bill.
Children are welcome. Calm children have a much better afternoon here.
Closed Wednesdays. The cats still eat, we just don't.
Plate iv · the catio
The catio
A separate enclosure with a door on it. The young ones are in here, and the ones still getting better. It is the part of the café that people write to us about afterwards, and it is the part with rules.
Ask before you go in. Only a few people at a time.
Nobody picks a cat up. Ever. Sit down and wait instead.
Hands clean on the way in and on the way out.
No food or drink through the door.
If a cat walks away, it's finished. That's the whole rule.
Not for adoption
Zepos, captain
The garden was called Zepos long before he turned up. He took the name anyway, along with the hat on the sign and the best chair in the shade. He is not going anywhere and he is not up for discussion. You may share his table if he decides you can.
Written at the tables
The guest log
Signed in the garden, not from a sofa. There is a code on every table; scan it while you are here and leave a photo and a few lines for whoever sits there next.
Newest first · entries appear after a quick human check · photos stay until their owners ask us to take them down
Zepos Garden · the whole card
The menu
Gyros off the grill, waffles that arrive either savoury or drowned in chocolate, frappé in the shade, and a cocktail list that is entirely puns.
The reason the restaurant closed
Every cat in this garden is looking. One might be yours.
Nobody has to adopt anything to sit here. But most people assume a Greek street cat cannot follow them home to Munich or Manchester, It can. It is legal, it is ordinary, and it is far less trouble than you are imagining. Here is exactly how it goes, start to finish.
The number changes every few weeks, which is the whole idea.
Cards drawn by us until each cat sits still long enough for a photograph · reserved means someone is already talking to Dimitra
1
Meet them in the catio
No appointment, no form first. Ask at the bar and someone will take you through the door.
2
Read the card
Every cat has one. Where they were found, what happened to them, what they are like at eight in the morning. It is how you leave with a fit instead of a favourite.
3
Talk to Dimitra
She will ask you questions about your home, your hours and your other animals. That is the point of her. A cat that comes back is worse than a cat that never left.
4
We do the rest
Vet, paperwork, carrier, travel. All of it is ours to sort out, not yours. There is a board in the garden showing where the ones before yours ended up.
Zepos Garden · adoption file
✓ Vaccinated done
✓ Dewormed done
✓ Treated for fleas done
✓ Microchipped done
✓ Health checked done
Every line above is finished before a cat is ever offered to anyone. Travel documents and the flight are arranged by us.
4.8Google rating across 533 reviews
0Cats currently looking for a home
€0To walk in and meet them
How this actually stays open
There is no entry fee. That is on purpose.
Plenty of cat cafés charge at the door. We would rather you came in, sat down, watched what actually happens here for an hour, and then decided for yourself whether it is worth supporting.
Feeding them and paying the vet does not happen by itself, though. So if you want to help, these are the five ways, in order of how much they matter.
Plate iii · the terrace
