You're reading: Second life of restaurant business from war-torn east

The bright yellow terrace of 3B Café immediately catches the eye on Khoryva Street in Kyiv’s Podil neighborhood. Affordable prices ensure that the place is often crowded.

Restaurateur from Luhansk opened the cafe in December. They left the city in June 2014 after its takeover by Russian-separatist forces. According to cafe owner Oleksiy Maslyanskiy, most of the waiters came with them from Luhansk, but none of the equipment from the several restaurants in Luhansk could be brought to Kyiv.

So Maslyanskiy started from scratch. The café in Podil was such a success that a second 3B café opened in Shota Rustaveli Street.

The 3B in the café name stands for “Beer, Beef, Burger.” The venue offers 10 types of burgers. From 12 p.m. until 3 p.m., unlimited Pepsi goes with any burger.

When I came to check out the 3B café on Shota Rustaveli Street on a Monday afternoon, the place was surprisingly full. Foreigners and local hipsters were chilling on the terrace, while couples and people from the nearby offices tried to escape the hot day inside.

For the lunch, I ordered Atlanta beef and bacon burger (Hr 97) and passion fruit lemonade (Hr 17). My friend chose the salmon burger (Hr 129) and beer (Hr 28) by the First Private Brewery. While we were waiting for the order, the waitress brought us drinks and breadsticks.

Lemonade tasted like ordinary sweet water with lemon and a trace of passion fruit, but the burger turned out very tasty. It arrived in some 10 minutes and was served with french fries, fresh salad and sauce. It contained two parts of malt bun, one with the egg and blue cheese sauce and another with a beef patty, sweet onions, cheese, juicy bacon, Boston salad and sauce. It was a rather big portion, and left me full till the next morning.

My friend’s burger had salmon with sauce on the top, Iceberg salad, pickles, tomatoes and blue cheese sauce. He found it delicious. His okroshka, cold summer soup with veal, greengrocery and tongue, filled with ayran, was refreshing.

The hostess didn’t warn us that the visitors smoke on the terrace. I guess it would be better to separate non-smokers.

The café offers steaks for Hr 125-169, salads: Greek (Hr 55), Ceasar (Hr 69). Ukrainian borshch goes for Hr 38, mussels with French fries for Hr 79, grilled tongue for Hr 95.

The disappointment was the entrance to the house behind my back, where people were coming and going, but the taste of the food didn’t leave me for a long time.