Potraviny – Your Local Shop
Corner shop, convenience store or liquor store, it has many names but here we call it a Potraviny. It’s a place where you can stop and buy a variety of food and non-food items outside of normal supermarket opening times. The word Potraviny literally translates as “foodstuffs”.
For people staying in Prague apartments then you’ll be using them for your daily needs because they’ll have your basic breakfast stuff, milk, cereal, eggs, tinned food, takeaway filled rolls/sandwiches, a variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink plus cigarettes/tobacco. There’ll be an area for fresh fruit and veg usually in crates plus a freezer for frozen products and ice-cream. In the larger Potraviny shops there’ll be a meat products section for processed ham, salami and sausages.
Like all convenience options you’ll pay more than if you did a similar shop in a supermarket but you won’t have to carry your shopping as far.
The most popular Potraviny chain in Prague is Zabka (the frog). I can say that 99% of my experiences of using these shops has been positive and the 1% is usually poor price labelling. Where I’ve had issues is in one of the many independent Potraviny options that in large part have now been taken over by the Vietnamese community in the city. Don’t get me wrong, nice people and the shops are often open 24 hours but my advice is to ask how much something is before you get presented with the bill. Outside of Prague you’ll find a Potraviny run either by Zabka or another company called Enapo in many of the larger villages.
If it’s before 8am or after 9pm and you’ve run out of milk or you fancy drinking a bottle of wine on the balcony then your local Potraviny will help you out.
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