Jerusalem landmark eateries struggle to stay afloat amid coronavirus

'We are braced for six to eight difficult months. That’s where the biggest fear comes in.’

By ELIANA RUDEE
PURCHASING MEALS through the Headstart campaign is one of the ways customers can support Rehavia eateries Bab El Yemen and Carousela café (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
PURCHASING MEALS through the Headstart campaign is one of the ways customers can support Rehavia eateries Bab El Yemen and Carousela café
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Last week, Israel’s Health Ministry and Restaurants Association agreed to permit the reopening of Israel’s restaurants and cafes – one of the sectors hardest hit during the coronavirus outbreak – on May 27.
Even so, the owners of Jerusalem’s pioneering restaurants say that even with the announcement of reopening, their struggles are far from over. Jerusalem residents can expect that it will be a several-months-long process before their favorite restaurants return to normal – if at all – as some will be forced to move locations, close and, in the best-case scenario, financially recuperate before reopening.
After painfully watching her sales begin to decrease in February, and later plummet in March, Beth Yousefzadeh, owner and founder of Selfy’s yogurt and salad on Agripas Street reported that despite trying “any avenue” to make ends meet, from negotiating her lease to applying for government loans, she had to make the difficult decision close her store.
Originally from Long Island, New York, Yousefzadeh opened Selfy’s to bring the salad and self-serve frozen yogurt culture to Jerusalem and Israel, as a “fun, fast and healthy food option to-go, with hoping to eventually expand and make a national franchise.”
Before coronavirus, she said, “We were starting to get to a break-even point, increasing sales, popularity and good feedback so we had begun talks to open a second location in Malcha mall.”
Then, the novel coronavirus hit Israel.
Popular especially among “sem girls” and gap year students who would visit Selfy’s on a daily basis, Yousefzadeh said that when schools and seminaries were shut down and the students sent home, “I knew it wasn’t good.”
After sales dropped quickly, Yousefzadeh put her workers on halat (unpaid leave) and tried to stay open with delivery and takeaway options, but to no avail. She didn’t even make enough money to cover her electricity bill, reported the business owner.
WHILE IT’S too late to save Selfy’s yogurt and salad, owner Beth Yousefzadeh urges: ‘Buy local and buy small, it helps.’ (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
WHILE IT’S too late to save Selfy’s yogurt and salad, owner Beth Yousefzadeh urges: ‘Buy local and buy small, it helps.’ (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
When the government opened loan applications, she “tried right away, calling almost every day, but the rules kept changing and they didn’t answer.” Later, the government denied the loan request because it was too risky of a loan to give, explained Yousefzadeh. Part of a Facebook community for small restaurant owners in Jerusalem, Yousefzadeh added, most of her business-owning peers were denied as well, and those who were granted the loan weren’t getting their money.
With her landlord, an oleh himself, not offering any flexibility, she will need to vacate her equipment by the end of the month and will begin looking for a new location once gap year students and tourists return.
“It’s frustrating and depressing,” she related, disappointed that her landlord didn’t offer to help in any way though he “was supposed to be on my side.”
“I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly of Israeli society,” she said. Though it is “too late” for Jerusalem residents to save her business, she urged: “buy local and buy small, it helps.”
Innovating new business models to survive
Other restaurant owners have become innovative with their business models, some setting up programs where customers can purchase meals in advance to help their restaurants ready themselves financially before reopening.
Yehonatan Vadai, owner of Yemenite restaurant Bab El Yemen and Carousela café in Rehavia, said that purchasing meals through its Headstart campaign is one of the ways customers can “support and help us overcome this crisis.”
If the restaurant does not reach its goal in the all-or-nothing crowd funding campaign, the restaurants will close and customers will have their money returned.
Concerned that “my business will change dramatically” with the feeling that “we are facing a whole new future,” Vadai said that every challenge before the coronavirus now seems small compared to the challenges he is facing today with the new regulations, trying to cut expenses, increase productivity and simply pay the rent in order to survive.
Vadai, too, was disappointed “to see the amount the government decided to give us” and petitioned lawmakers in Israel’s Knesset with other business owners to “bring a real plan to help small businesses in Israel.”
Hoping he can continue to combine culinary and Yemenite culture and bring religious and secular together through Bab El Yemen’s Shabbat and kosher-observant model that is open on Shabbat, Vadai has also begun to offer takeout and delivery options, even at the expense of compromising on the atmosphere for customers which he said was the most important feature of his restaurants.
MAMILLA MALL and its many restaurants remain shuttered at the end of April. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
MAMILLA MALL and its many restaurants remain shuttered at the end of April. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Preserving the ‘mojo’ while bracing for more difficult times ahead
Ephraim Greenblatt, originally from Long Island like Yousefzadeh, opened Hatch in the Mahaneh Yehuda market in August, 2017, and recently opened Shmaltz deli in Ramat Eshkol, just a month before the coronavirus hit Israel.
Greenblatt, with background as a home brewer, comes from a family that understood that “food is love and love is food.” He opened the newer restaurant, drawing his inspiration from his German grandmother’s traditional Ashkenazi home-style food, finding a “forward-facing and contemporary package that is social media accessible and respects old and new cultural and religious traditions.”
As a “gastro pub of genuine hospitality where religious and secular Jews and non-Jewish tourists can all come and hang out over a beer,” Greenblatt joked that he would often hear from American Jewish tourists, “I’m coming to Israel and I want to go to the Kotel (Western Wall) and Hatch, but if I don’t make it to the Kotel, it’s okay.”
Focusing on the quality of the experience and ingredients that kept customers coming back, Greenblatt decided to close Hatch because of the coronavirus after a short-lived try at takeaway and delivery – the latter a first for Hatch – later closing “not for financial reasons but out of fairness and respect to our workers.”
Still, Greenblatt stayed focused on his long-term business model, deciding to add the option of delivery long-term, even in communities outside of Jerusalem, and offering an option to deliver essentials by Shmaltz deli, “pivoting toward an understanding that people are spending more time eating at home, raiding their refrigerators.”
As both an owner and employee of his business, Greenblatt noted that he has not yet been eligible for government funding on a personal basis, though he heard that a new personal grant application would be opening soon. He was, however, approved for a government-backed loan, though he hasn’t yet seen the money, and related, “my workers were put on halat and are getting some money, and that’s something I’m grateful for.”
Greenblatt, like Yousefzadeh, relied on American tourists as his main customer base and with no tourists coming into Israel, new government regulations and the public’s changed attitudes toward spending money and eating in public spaces, he has found great challenge in “running a business model with half the customers it was designed for” and “preserving the mojo” of his normal business, when lines were out the door.
“We are braced for six to eight difficult months,” he said. “That’s where the biggest fear comes in.”
Still, though, Greenblatt says there is “joy in playing the long game” and was adamant that great restaurants should not be pitied.
“Restaurants are care givers, not receivers and we don’t want the narrative to be one of pity,” he said.
“We miss our community,” concluded Greenblatt. In the mean time, he asked his customers, “engage with our Instagram content, keep asking for recipes, be silly, make jokes, and do all the wonderful things that communities do.”