Fest closing Lvivska Maisternia Shokoladu in Donetsk

The !Fest holding (Lviv), which develops novel restaurant and store brands, has suspended operation of the Lvivska Maisternia Shokoladu coffee house in Donetsk.

"Business in the occupied Donetsk in Ukrainian language at the Ukrainian private enterprise, without using Russian rubles and paying to terrorists and without quick prospects. Lvivska Maisternia Shokoladu is closing its coffee house in Donetsk," head and co-owner of the holding Andriy Khudo wrote on his Facebook page.

He said that the coffee house has been operating to date as a Ukrainian private enterprise and paid taxed in Ukraine, and it was not re-registered under demands of terrorists.

"The coffee house observed all the franchise conditions: music playlist, communications in Ukrainian – everything was as it is in Lviv. There were no tags with prices in rubles, and we used only the Ukrainian hryvnia, despite the fact that the rest of franchise formats in Donetsk have been operating using rubles for a long time," he said.

He said that chocolate to Donetsk was supplied from Lviv to Dnipropetrovsk, and then the partner company took the products and gave them to the carriers who brought them to Donetsk.

Khudo thanked the team of employees of Lvivska Maisternia Shokoladu in Donetsk and promised to do everything to give jobs to those who want to take part in other projects of the holding in Ukraine.

!Fest Holding was established in 2007. It develops a chain of restaurants, coffee houses and stores in Ukraine.

The first outlet opened by the company was the Kryjivka restaurant in Lviv, and among other outlets with original concepts are the Masoch-Cafe, Festyvalna Restoratsia Livyj Bereh, the restaurants Zenyk Mytnyk, Pyvo z Derynamy and Zenyk ne Hlamur, the restaurant-museum Hasova Lampa, Persha Hryliova Restoratsia Miasa ta Spravedlyvosty, Naidorozhcha Restoratsia Galychyny, Lvivska Kopalnia Kavy, Lvivska Maisternia Shokoladu, the Lvivski Tsiatsky souvenir shop and others.