Σεφτές – Seftés

Today, while still in Paxoi, we decided to leave Loggos for a few hours and visit Lakka.

Lakka is busier than Loggos. More commercialized. More built up. And its harbor is much, much larger.

We walked along the waterfront, followed the road toward the lighthouse, and stopped repeatedly to take photographs—as people carrying cameras aka phones are legally required to do whenever they encounter a lighthouse.

Eventually, we wandered back into town for coffee and a croissant.

We have to admit something.

The croissant in Lakka was much better than the one in Loggos.

This may not sound important, but we had now conducted extensive research involving two croissants in two villages. We felt qualified to publish our findings.

There is one slightly sad thing about bakeries nowadays.

Early one morning in Loggos, around 6:20, I watched a van delivering trays of baked goods. The bakery itself was still closed. Natasha did not arrive to open the shop until around 7:30.

The croissants, bread, and other pastries had apparently been baked somewhere else—in some large, nondescript central baking facility—and then distributed to the individual shops.

Efficient?

Certainly.

Romantic?

Not even slightly.

One of the things I love about Kalamata is that bakeries still smell like bakeries. You can walk through the city early in the morning and suddenly find yourself surrounded by the smell of fresh bread, pastries, and whatever magnificent baked item is currently destroying your plans to eat sensibly.

But I have wandered away from the story.

This happens frequently.

After our coffee, Karen and I continued through Lakka’s narrow cobblestone streets.

Then Karen spotted a shop selling pareos.

A pareo is one of her favorite things once summer arrives. Apparently, a person can never own too many lightweight pieces of fabric to wrap around herself near the sea.

“Same price as in Loggos,” she announced, examining one.

Shhhh 🤫!

Nobody tell her it was the same store as the one in Loggos.

We continued walking.

A few minutes later, she spotted another shop.

This time, she found something she liked.

A man was walking out as I stood near the entrance, waiting for the inevitable conclusion.

“I’m only here to pay for whatever the customer chooses,” I told him, pointing toward my wife.

He nodded knowingly.

This was clearly not his first time observing the system.

Then came paying time.

“Forty euros with a card,” the shopkeeper said. “Thirty-five cash.”

For Americans, this requires a small tax explanation.

In the United States, the price on the tag usually does not include sales tax. The tax is added when you reach the register, allowing you to discover that the item you carefully calculated you could afford costs slightly more than the money you actually have.

In Greece, VAT—Value Added Tax—is already included in the displayed price.

There is no surprise at the register.

For clothing, the standard VAT rate is a steep 24 percent. The forty-euro price already includes it.

Now, I am not suggesting that the five-euro cash discount represented exactly five euros of VAT.

It did not.

The arithmetic is more complicated, and I had neither my calculator nor an appointment with her accountant.

But the unofficial calculation of the moment was much simpler.

She saves five euros.

We save five euros.

Give and take.

It is a commercial transaction, after all.

I handed her a fifty-euro note.

She took it, smiled, and rubbed the banknote lightly over the top of her head, as if spreading its luck around.

“Κάναμε σεφτέ;” (Kaname sefte?—Did we make your first sale of the day?) I asked.

Her face lit up.

She nodded repeatedly.

“You remember!” she said.

After being away for thirty years.

“Of course I remember.”

And there it was.

Σεφτές (seftes).

A small Greek word carrying an entire shopkeeper’s morning inside it.

The word came into Greek from the Turkish siftah, meaning the first sale of the day—the transaction that officially opens the business.

To κάνω σεφτέ (kano sefte) means to make that first sale.

Έκανα σεφτέ (ekana sefte) means, “I made my first sale.”

Κάναμε σεφτέ (kaname sefte) means, “We made the first sale.”

And somehow the customer gets included in the accomplishment.

The shopkeeper may own the store, but it takes two people to make a sefte.

One to sell.

And one to stand near the door holding the wallet.

The first sale matters because it breaks the silence of the day.

Until then, the shop has been open but waiting. People may have walked past. They may have looked through the window, touched the merchandise, asked the price, and then announced that they would return later—which everyone knows is the international tourist expression for “You will never see me again.”

Then someone finally buys something.

The day has begun.

The first money is often treated as lucky money. A shopkeeper may touch it to the forehead or the top of the head, tap it against the counter, or briefly pass it over the merchandise—as if spreading the good fortune around and encouraging the remaining goods to follow its example.

One sale should bring another.

And another.

A little commerce.

A little hope.

A little superstition.

All performed so naturally that nobody stops to explain it.

Unless, of course, an American wife is standing nearby wondering why the woman who just sold her something is tapping a fifty-euro note against her head.

Karen looked at me.

“What did she do?”

“We made her sefte,” I explained. “Our purchase was her first sale today.”

Karen smiled.

She had not merely bought another summer outfit.

She had officially opened the Lakka economy.

The transaction itself had been completely modern.

A tourist shop on a Greek island. Imported summer clothing. Forty euros by card or thirty-five in cash. VAT, card machines, receipts, and all the machinery of modern commerce.

Then the shopkeeper touched that first banknote to her head.

For one second, the modern store disappeared.

I could have been standing behind almost any shop counter in Greece during my childhood.

Thirty years away, and I did not have to search for the word or translate the gesture.

I saw the banknote touch her head and immediately asked:

“Κάναμε σεφτέ;”

Some Greek words do not need to be remembered.

They simply wait.

Karen made the first purchase of the day.

I was only there to finance it.