Kiryat Shmona, Israel — Opening a new burger joint in the middle of a raging war, just a stone’s throw from Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, might seem a little unhinged. But Yehezkel Schweiger doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s very patriotic,” the Israeli restaurateur told CBS News as he showed off his diner-style restaurant. “We really wanted the community to feel that they have another good place to come and hang out, relax from all of the things that’s going around here.”
And there is a lot going on around here.
Earlier that afternoon we had to take cover in a bomb shelter — even though we were on a heavily defended Israeli military outpost — as an incoming threat was detected by Israeli air defenses.
Hezbollah has launched rockets and drones at the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona pretty much daily since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran at the end of February. When the air raid sirens blare, you have seconds, not minutes, to take shelter.
Schweiger has two young sons and a baby girl on the way. He said it’s tough sending his 7-year-old to school knowing the risks involved.
But asked if it bothers him, being so close to the border, he didn’t hesitate: “No. I get up every morning since I’m here and I look around at the view that I have here and say thank you. Thank you that I can have the rivers next to me and all of the eucalyptuses here, and that’s what I need. I’m not a person of the city.”
Schweiger’s new restaurant, Kvishtish, is a spinoff of his larger, popular restaurant Kvish 90, which is much further south in Israel. The new place has a bar to belly up to, a beat-up car for families and kids to play in and pose for the ‘Gram and TikTok, and colorful neon signs.
It was buzzing when we visited even though we came between the lunch and dinner crowds. It’s busiest on Saturday night, right after the end of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath.
The building work was literally done under fire, but Schweiger sees Kvishtish as a sanctuary.
“The vibe here is something different,” he said, and that starts with staff who, despite the war, help to keep things positive.
“We try to take people that are very happy and come to work, and since they are happy they go to the customers very happy, and it’s a chain, a circle that goes around,” he said.
While we were there, Israeli forces bombed the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut — attacks that Iran said had crossed a red line. Within hours, two dozen Iranian ballistic missiles were soaring toward Israel.
“One customer asked whether we were worried,” said Schweiger. “I explained, this is our job. When I asked her whether she was worried, she simply said, ‘I live here.'”
He can see how opening the restaurant might be seen as an act of defiance, but his stance is very similar to his customer’s.
“This is our home, and we don’t want to leave it,” he said, acknowledging that his decision to open Kvishtish was also “a statement.”
“We’re here to stay,” he told CBS News.
