Milk bars in Cracow

Visiting a new city means meeting totally new culture with its all more or less exotic parts. Even European city can be exotic in some way. Probably one of the unusual things in Poland for western tourists can be a milk bar. What is a milk bar? It's a Polish form of cafeteria with homemade-style food served. First typical milk bar was opened in 1896 in Warsaw by Stanisław Dłużewski and was called "Mleczarnia Nadświdrzańska". The milk bars were popular especially during 1920s and 1930s and during communism. Usually the menu of a milk bar is based on dairy products, butnowadays you can find there also other types of food like Polish pierogi, bigos, omelets, vegetables soups and some sweet cakes.



The main idea of any milk park is the price. Milk bars are cheap, much cheaper than restaurants which serve more sophisticated meals. Milk barks almost dissapeared after the fall of communistic system and were replaced by the standard restaurant. However, in early 2010s they became popular again. They became small, inexpensive restaurants where you can eat cheap typical Polish meals, the same as you can find in many Polish homes. Because of some sort of nostalgia and very specific atmosphere they became more popular and nowadays they are are visited by tourists as well who want to see the place where time stopped in some way. They are also popular among Polish people – the elderly, students, working class because average meal and costs 2-4 euros.

Every bigger Polish city has at least one milk bark, but usually there is more than one. At the beginning they can be difficult to find because they don't have fancy or original look – the visual side of the place is not the most important there, usually they have old communistic style. Cracow isn't an exception, you can find a lot of milk bars. You can find them on Starowiślna Street, Limanowskiego Street, Grodzka Street or Krakowska Street, here you will find more details. So if you want to get to know Cracow from other, less glamour side, you must go to a milk bar and try its goods.