Tiberias Childhood Friends Turn a Café Gamble Into a Hotel Bar Expansion
Maor Sahar, 35, and Idan Shmo, 39, two childhood friends from Tiberias, are opening a new bar called NO.2 next week at the corner of HaYarkon and Trumpeldor in Tel Aviv, near the sea, Bar 51 and the Imperial Hotel. The venue is the latest addition to a growing hospitality group that already runs four businesses, including two in partnership with Israel Canada Hotels, the owner of Brown Hotels and Play Hotels.
Their path began with Cafe Flor, a French European style café they opened in Kiryat Motzkin during the coronavirus period. A second branch, Cafe Flor Le Petit, opened in Givatayim at the start of the war, when vacant storefronts appeared on Herzl St. and rental opportunities briefly opened up. Sahar said, “People told me I was crazy, but I saw it as an opportunity.”
The leap to major hotel deals came after a man walked into the Givatayim café and asked who the owners were. Shmo later searched online and found it was Reuven Elkes, CEO and partner at Israel Canada Hotels. At their meeting, he arrived with lawyers, a food and beverage manager and a full team. Sahar said Elkes offered them a restaurant at West Play Hotel on Hof HaTzuk, and they were stunned to learn the company had 38 hotels. He told them he wanted to find young operators and grow them, and they eventually agreed.
Their first joint restaurant with the group opened about a year ago at Play Hotel with chef Elior Avraham. For NO.2 they added head chef Nes Gavri, another childhood friend from Tiberias who worked at Turquoise, Paradiso, private events and a restaurant in Australia. The new kosher bar-restaurant will focus on fish and Mediterranean tapas, with raw fish, salads and vegetables, a happy hour dish for 35 shekels, cocktails at 54 shekels, and half the seats facing the sea for sunset views.
The four partners say they grew up in Tiberias of the 1980s, which they describe as far more open and lively than today. They say the city has changed because of secular emigration and the growth of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, and that their childhood sports fields and community center were turned into religious institutions. Even so, they say Tiberias remains home. They also said most of their venues carry kosher supervision from Tzohar, after the rabbinical establishment at Play Hotel would have cost them more than 11,000 shekels a month for a mashgiach room, versus about 2,000 shekels with cameras under Tzohar. Despite the security and economic climate, Sahar said, “From crises come opportunities,” and Shmo said they are entering Tel Aviv small but intend to grow big.
