Thanasis Karyamis, the owner of Giantes, the restaurant near Exarheia square where Finance Minister Yianis Varoufakis dined and was subsequently attacked and threatened by a number of “anti-state” / “anti-establishment” activists spoke with Proto Thema. “His wife came first, with a friend. Yanis Varoufakis came at around 10 on his bike without security,” says Karyamis. “At around midnight, anti-state activists made up of around 40 people showed up with covered faces and entered the restaurant. They threw a bottle of water on the wall and broke a glass at one of the corridors of the restaurant.”

“The first 2-3 minutes were violent and I was shocked, until we figured out what they wanted. Mr. Varoufakis’ wife was shocked and her first reflex was to take her husband in her arms and protect him,” says Karyamis.

The owner says that the anti-state activists were telling Varoufakis to leave Exarheia. “What’s your job here?” they yelled. The Finance Minister, who has obviously faced worse than 40 hoodlums thanks to all the practice at Eurogroup meetings, remained calm and decided to reason with them and calm them down. “That was for around ten minutes. They didn’t want to hit him or have a fist-fight. He had come without a guard, and they could have hit him had they wanted to,” says the owner.

“They then went out of the restaurant and a number of them stood around, loitering on the footpath. After 15 minutes, Varoufakis left. He got on his motorbike with his wife. The moment he went to leave he was verbally attacked. He turned off the engine and got off, asking ‘Do you want to punch me or talk?'” says the owner. That is how a discussion begna for 20 minutes. Varoufakis finally left the restaurant shortly before 1 a.m.

The restaurant owner says that Varoufakis would frequent his restaurant even before becoming minister and has visited the restaurant 2-3 times since assuming government duties.