For years milk bars have been perceived as a sad relic of the People's Republic of Poland, a uniquely Polish gastronomic phenomenon doomed to disappear after losing business to fast food.

Recently milk bars have become a widely discussed issue. When the Ministry of Finance decided to cut subsidies for these institutions, the scale of protests forced a withdrawal of the decision. It seems these bars have a specific character which does not exist outside Poland.

Marcin Prokopiuk from Rzeszów has been studying in Warsaw for over a year. He lives in a student hostel and dines mainly in the famous Uniwersytecki bar situated at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street, roughly 100 meters from the main gate of the University. "I come from a poor family, and thanks to the fact that milk bars exist, I can eat cheap and tasty food," says Marcin. There are hundreds of students similar to him. Uniwersytecki, dubbed Karaluch (Cockroach), by students is more than a bar for them. It is a place where they meet and discuss lectures, where student friendships and romances are born.

But Karaluch is visited not only by students who do not have enough money to eat in other, more luxury places. According to Ola, an art history student, "some students, even those from well-off families, eat in milk bars because it is in fashion, just like other holdovers of People's Poland-Fiat 125 cars or ugly cafes and milk bars.
Besides, many of my friends prefer homemade tasting pancakes or borsch from a milk bar to American hamburgers and chicken," adds Ola.

Milk bars have also found their place in Polish mass culture, specifically in the cult comedy movie entitled Miś directed by Stanisław Bareja. "The picture presented in the film is to a large extent exaggerated, although one thing has remained unchanged until today-most milk bars customers still come from two social groups, students and retirees. Others come here only sporadically," claims Ms. K., a manager of one of Warsaw's milk bars, who wished to remain anonymous since, as she says, she is "tired of the noise that has emerged around milk bars in recently." Her opinion, which is shared by most employees and customers of milk bars with whom The Warsaw Voice spoke, is that cutting milk bar subsidies will lead to a loss of customers and consequently their bankruptcy. For a vast majority of pensioners and students, a predicted 40-percent rise in prices, meaning by zl.3-4 for a dish, would mean resigning from their only hot meal of the day.

Milk bars are worth visiting not for their exhibition of Polish poverty and customers who scrounge for five-groszy coins to pay for a plate of cabbage soup or dumplings with cottage cheese. Many appreciate the familiar climate of such places. There are also those who believe that the uniquely Polish phenomenon of milk bars should be part of the Polish dowry for the European Union.

Selected addresses of Warsaw's milk bars:

Uniwersytecki, 20/22 Krakowskie Przedmieście St.; Marymont, 49 Marymoncka St.; Gdański, 49 Andersa St.; Familijny, 39 Nowy Świat St.; Biedronka, 49 Grójecka St.; Malwa, 11 Conrada St.; Szwajcarski, 5 Nowy Świat St.

Examples of prices:

Soup-zl.1.50-1.70, Meatloaf-zl.3.20-4, pierogi ruskie dumplings-zl.2-2.50, pudding-zl.1-1.50.