The end of Tel Aviv’s Orna and Ella is more than just a closure of a restaurant

After the closing of the famous left-wing hangout Café Tamar, the last culinary and cultural bastion on Tel Aviv’s Sheinkin Street is now falling, with the owners of the Orna and Ella café announcing on Monday the closure of their restaurant at the end of March, 25 years after it opened. The restaurant, run by Orna Agmon and Ella Schein, became one of the symbols of the wild young city that never sleeps in the 1990s, part of the leftish, artistic “State of Sheinkin” that now seems completely extinct.

skip – A photo of Orna and Ella on Instagram

The final nail in the coffin of that street’s special culture comes after the closure of a number of other cafes in the area over the last two years, such as Café Luntz, Café Noah, Ahad Ha’am, Café Tamar and others. Another quintessential neighborhood café that also closed recently was Bacho.

Orna and Ella opened in 1992 as an alcove with only seven tables and a bar. The idea was to provide a place for young people living or working in what was once an exciting neighborhood to have coffee and a bite at the end of a workday. The founders decided to produce everything on their own – from bread and croissants to ice cream and cake. Another calling card was the hiring of only male waiters of ambiguous sexual orientation. Some of the dishes at Orna and Ella became iconic in the local culinary scene, including their famous sweet-potato latkes, cheese cakes and lemon pie. 

Attracting an intellectual, politically savvy, bourgeois crowd made Orna and Ella a symbol of Tel Aviv in the New Middle East ‘90s. As the street changed – with the disappearance of designer studios, record stores and a popular video library, along with the rise in rents which alienated the younger residents – Orna and Ella managed to hold on, a time capsule reminding us of how it once was. The restaurant featured in the 2006 Israeli movie “The Bubble” as the place where the gay love affair between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian started and tragically ended. Now even Orna and Ella is a thing of the past.

skip – A view of Orna and Ella from outside on Instagram

“After the feeling of completion and achievement that reached its peak in 2017, now comes the announcement of the expected renovation of the building on 33 Sheinkin Street, where the Orna and Ella restaurant opened and remained. It is like a sign from above,” said the founders.

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They say they hope the last diner leaves with a smile.