The restaurant scene in Kyiv has bloomed like never before over the past five years: Thousands of eateries offered a variety of cuisines and concepts, new dining formats appeared, coffee and cocktail cultures were spreading above and beyond.
Over the last several months, however, the industry has seen a crisis like never before. All eateries were forced to shut their doors after the government imposed a nationwide quarantine in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19.
For many restaurants, revenue was cut in half as delivery and takeout orders became the only revenue options.
The government recently granted the industry permission to serve customers on outdoor terraces and indoors in regions with a better epidemiological situation.
However, some eateries didn’t answer the bell to reopen the business. They are closed for good, putting a dent in the diversity and quality of the capital’s restaurant scene for a long time to come.
Here are some of the casualties:
New Tasty Project
The New Tasty Project is one of the newest Kyiv eateries that couldn’t weather the crisis. It didn’t last even a year. The cafe was founded on Vozdvyzhenska Street in a historic neighborhood by Andriy Chukovsky, who used to own the Whitebeard Blackbird cafes, and Yuriy Hatsenko, who also runs Harms cafe.
The experienced entrepreneurs teamed up to create a place with tasty, healthy food and homemade recipes to turn it into a profitable business. Chukovsky says that things were going great, even during winter, a slow season for a cafe that is far from metro stations.
The owners were expecting demand to grow in spring. Instead, they stopped all operations from Day 1 of the quarantine. Chukovsky says they refused to do delivery because they believe food has to be served hot. Moreover, a delivery person poses additional risks during an epidemic.
They received “ridiculously small” discounts on rent, so the two businessmen were hoping for a quick rollback of restrictions. However, when that didn’t happen in April and the quarantine was extended, the New Tasty Project, already in debt, faced two choices: find an investor or close. In the end, it was a simple choice. “We didn’t need debt to cover other debt,” Chukovsky says.
The two initially felt lost. What they knew how to do the best, run restaurants, was pretty much forbidden now. But their fear was soon replaced by excitement about a new idea.
The co-owners are now planning to open another eatery under the same name, but with a new concept: a place with wine and cheese that would offer diners the ability to know the sourcing of all their food.
Like a Local’s
The first Like a Local’s bar in Kyiv, which opened in 2016, broke new ground in promoting Ukrainian wine and products like cheese from small local farmers. The new concept combined with reasonable prices was an instant hit. So a year later, the bar’s owners founded another Like a Local’s — only to open one more two years later.
One of the co-owners, Sergiy Klimov, says that the two new bars, which are both located in busy areas near metro stations, started to steal the audience from the first one, whose remoteness from the subway was inconvenient.
In the months prior to the quarantine, the first Like a Local’s didn’t make much in revenue and the co-owners discussed closing it.
Klimov says that the quarantine put their two other bars under pressure because their drinks and small appetizers weren’t suitable for delivery. They had to send staff on unpaid leave and took out loans to pay taxes and rent.
Months into the crisis, the co-owners made the painful decision to shut down their first creation to save the other two establishments.
“It was mentally difficult,” Klimov told the Kyiv Post. With no goodbye party possible, “we just gathered with a small circle of friends,” he says.
The bars’ co-owners are looking forward to getting back to work. And for now, “the plan is to survive.”
A man passes by a building with the “for rent” sign on its doors on June 16, 2020, in Kyiv. Many businesses have closed during the nationwide quarantine in Ukraine freeing up premises for rent. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Espressoholic
Until recently, Espressoholic was a chain of six cafes in Kyiv. Because of the coronavirus lockdown, it lost one of its locations. The founders of Espressoholic, Oleksiy Taranushenko and Oleksandr Zabolotnyi, opened the first cafe in Kyiv’s Podil neighborhood in 2011. It was part of a movement for higher-quality coffee in Kyiv.
Their cafe in Podil became an iconic place and a favorite spot in the neighborhood. Experiencing high demand at every new cafe, the chain continued to grow.
Their third location was Espressoholic near the Shuliavska metro station, which opened in 2015. Taranushenko says that “it was a success from the first day.”
When the quarantine started, Espressoholic’s co-owners focused on decreasing expenses as much as possible. However, the financial struggle was only one of the risks that the current crisis imposed. Residents of the building where Espressoholic was located decided to close their yard to all but residents and set up access control to reduce social contacts during the epidemic. The company that subleased part of their premises to Espressoholic couldn’t use their yard entrance anymore, so they canceled the agreement with the cafe to use what used to be its entrance instead.
Espressoholic had to move out a week after receiving notice.
“It wasn’t pleasant,” Taranushenko told the Kyiv Post. “The cafe made a profit even during the quarantine.”
The rest of their landlords, however, either cut the rent price by as much as 50% or froze it completely for the crisis time. The Espressoholic founders are still optimistic about the rest of their establishments and are planning to open in new locations given the new availability of space for rent around the city.
“We will continue to open cafes,” Taranushenko said.
Lost & Found
Lost & Found has been a beloved spot for five years. The bar opened near the Olimpiyska metro station by Ukrainian-American married couple Adam Howell and Nina Antoshchenko.
Mixing cocktails had been a long-lasting hobby for Howell, so he decided to take it to a new level in 2015, coinciding with the rise of the cocktail culture in Kyiv.
When the quarantine was imposed, the owners shut down Lost & Found temporarily. It never actually reopened, but it wasn’t the crisis that ended the business.
The break from regular operations gave the bar’s founders time and space to think about the future of the place. Since it was a small bar with a small audience, they always knew it had an expiration date.
Closing Lost & Found would also give the couple a chance to focus on their other creation, the Podil East India Company, which serves cocktails and Asian food.
So a couple of months into the quarantine, Howell and Antoshchenko shut down Lost & Found.
“I love everyone who had any connection to this place,” Howell wrote on Facebook in a post about the bar’s closure. “Thank you for being with us.”
Now the two are developing the menu for the Podil East India Company and looking into expanding their own delivery service. The couple is also considering establishing a new eatery. However, they first need to explore the market, which is undergoing a new transformation.
“It’s the matter of when, not if,” Howell said.
