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Margarita Koutalaki, 37, a softly spoken waitress, divorced with an 11-year-old daughter, worked here part-time for eight years, earning about €6.50 (?5.70) an hour. Now she is taking turns to sleep on an inflatable mattress in an upstairs room, guarding the squat, while her parents babysit her child.

The waiters serve cheap drinks and cut-price dinners to a new clientele of leftists and protesters from the four-month-old "indignants" movement, who would previously never have set foot in this bastion of imperialism, the Greek franchise of US giant Applebee's. A banner in English tempts tourists with cheap souvlaki and meatballs "in support of the workers".

Living a 40-minute drive from the city centre, he commutes by motorbike for what scarce work remains, but avoids paying for bus tickets or tolls. He also stages supermarket ambushes, handing shoppers big protest stickers to place on any goods they consider ludicrously expensive. Milk is a favourite. Noulas and his group fill trolleys with goods and ask the manager for a 30% discount. When refused, they abandon the full trolleys at the till.

At the demo on 20 July, Barbara, 30, a Greek language teacher, who did not want to give her surname, said she was serving coffee in a bar for €30 per nine-hour shift on the black economy. She lives with her father, a pensioner, and mother, a shop owner who is deeply in debt.