By Becky Wong
At the time of publishing this blog, this is our third time returning to Sofia and to Bulgaria. Last time we were here in 2018 we were only here for two weeks and we mostly worked from home or from cafes. If you want to read more about our first visits to Bulgaria and why we fell in love with Bulgaria, click here to read this blog post.
This time we spent our first week exploring various coworking spaces before settling on our weekly routines. We usually shy away from signing up to any monthly memberships. We prefer the day passes because we work better changing our working environments every day! Some days we work from “home”, some days we go to a coworking space and others we work from cafes.
Sofia is fast becoming a hub for digital nomads and remote workers with its affordable prices and fast internet available. We find ourselves coworking in Sofia regularly.
So where can you co-work from in Sofia?
Here are a few places we worked remotely from in Sofia while we’ve been here.
Betahaus
Since opening their first space in Berlin in 2009, Betahaus now has branches in most European cities. Betahaus has two locations in Sofia City Centre. The Slaveykov Square Branch is a smaller space which only offers monthly memberships, there were no hot-desking available here when we asked. We did stop by to have a look anyway as we weren’t too far from the space and we found this location has a spectacular view from up top! From the aftermath being cleared up that morning in the shared areas and the kitchen, it looked like they had a great time celebrating Christmas here. 😀
The second bigger location at Shipka is where we spent our time working at. The community team are super helpful and welcoming, even though we dropped in on the first day without booking ahead. Tedy in the community team showed us around and told us what coworking options were available. One day passes are available if there are spaces available on the day (if like us you prefer day passes it is best to email to book ahead!).
Betahaus offers a big spacious open-plan office, phonebooths for making calls, use of their kitchen if you also love having access to plenty of coffee, water machines to refill your own bottles (which is always fantastic to have especially when some restaurants here still refuse to give you tap water and only sell you plastic bottled water.)
Because we weren’t monthly members we didn’t get access to the online members site but – for those of you coming to Sofia who are more of the monthly membership persuasion – it is a very social coworking space that encourages members to get to know each other. The space has both freelancers and full teams (mostly working in SaaS, I.T. and web development services) who are renting the fixed desk and office spaces. They have a regular calendar of members events including breakfasts, ice skating, office massages, as well as couple of celebratory members events aptly called “Let’s have a shot for {insert members name here}”.
The most exciting thing about Betahaus for me is that we discovered a member of Betahaus brings in their Husky to the office almost every day. This Husky always approached us to say “Hello” and sniff at us whenever we went into Betahaus… I wonder if the owner ever needs a couple of house/petsitters… Office dogs will win me over to a new co-work space instantly: “Sign me up! Take my money!”
Cosmos Coworking Camp
Cosmos is walking distance from the city centre as well as other landmarks including the National Theatre, National Art Gallery and Sofia University. It’s very close to the main Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Whenever we work here we can easily walk to the main street of Vitosha Boulevard or other nearby streets in that area to go for lunch.
This coworking space in Sofia is cosy with a sense of grandeur in the building decor. They have a main hall with high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows, with big chandeliers and star shaped fairy lights draped across the windows. We mostly worked in this main hall. Two giant murals cover the walls either side of the room – one side presents a utopian, bright, colourful, fantasy countryside while the other side appears to depict a darker, dystopian world.
Cosmos also has permanent office spaces available to companies to rent. Downstairs there are two meeting rooms you can book to use, a basement with more areas to work from, a shared kitchen, and a bar/café where you can buy coffees, tea, snacks and alcoholic drinks. The upstairs main hall can be hired for events. We’ve noticed it’s pretty busy through the week with a sign always on the door saying the space is booked from 6pm pretty much every time we’ve worked at Cosmos.
They offer hot-desking by the hour, day passes or monthly memberships. Members get 24/7 access while hourly/daily passes have access 9am-9pm. We went for a hot-desk pass of 40 hours that we could use spread out across our month in Sofia. We just beep in and beep out at the main entrance. Note: We spotted a black dog is resident here with one of the teams during our last Cosmos coworking day. Be very excited.
Catcotheque
We started our new year working remotely in Sofia at a social enterprise co-work space that fosters cats until they can find new homes! All profits from the space go back into care for these kitties and into growing the space. There are three areas here – the café style area with a mix of tables, chairs and a sofa space. There are boardgames visitors can play as well as plenty of toys to play with the cats. A middle area with two desks and office chairs. At the back is a bigger chillout lounge area.
It works on a pay-as-you-go basis either on an hourly rate or a maximum daily rate depending on how long you stay there. You pay when you leave, your fee includes use of everything at the Catcotheque and refills of tea or coffee.
The staff here take really great care of the cats and visitors alike. They’ll you all about each cat, their names, their backstories, their needs and temperaments. Luckily they always also warn you before they begin feeding time which begins a frenzy of Meows surrounding you if you’re sat by the kitchen area!
Do come here if you love cats! Allow at least 20-30 minutes on arrival to be thoroughly distracted by all of the cats before you can begin your work. If you know anyone who is looking to or is able to foster a cat from Bulgaria please point them towards Catcotheque, otherwise you can also support them by donating through their Patreon page here. If we could we would love to take Yoda and Petra home with us but we don’t have our own proper base right now… yet….
Malkite 5
Malkite 5 is an independent studio that provides space for coworking in Sofia, one of the smaller spaces in a converted apartment building that features high ceilings, dark hardwood floors.
We spent one morning hot-desking here after we were welcomed in by one of the companies who are based here when we stopped by – Thanks again for helping us when we dropped in! We’ll stop dropping in impromptu and surprising co-working spaces, we promise.
This homely, creative coworking space offers you a shared kitchen, outdoor terrace, meeting room, and a little library of books and magazines at your disposal.
Green Deli Café
Green Deli is not a coworking space but with numerous branches around Sofia it’s a favourite spot of ours for breakfast, for hot drinks and for working remotely.
Wi-fi and plug sockets are available as are spacious tables and comfortable chairs to set up shop for the day. They have a great deli selection of sandwiches, salads and desserts. They’re open into the early evening so if you find yourself clocking off here later in the day then you’ll be able to grab an after-work beer or wine right here.
Social Bar Kitchen & Café
Another Sofia city centre spot where we love to go for food and drinks as well as to work remotely from is Social Bar Kitchen and Café. A great place to meet friends for a drink too. We haven’t spent a whole day working here. We usually end up working here for the rest of the day if we came here for lunch or for a few hours before we plan to come here for dinner.
Our original plan since last summer was to stay in Asia until the end of March 2020 but a close family wedding brought us back to Europe in December last year, so we decided dust off our second-hand skis to head back to Bansko for a few months of ski season instead. While making travel arrangements for Bansko we decided, why not, let’s spend a month in Sofia too.
We can’t wait to explore the coworking community in Bansko next!
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