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Kapulsky cake
Photo: Hagit Goren

Kapulsky Café making a comeback

Owners of Vita Galilee Fruit Ltd. re-establishing legendary Israeli coffee shop chain

The legendary Kapulsky café chain is making a comeback, Yedioth Ahronoth's economic supplement Mamon has learned.

 

The move is being led by Zaki Shalom, one of the owners of the Hatzi Hinam supermarket chain, and Oshik Efraim, CEO of the Vita company, which is owned by Hatzi Hinam.

 

About two years ago, Shalom and his partners purchased Vita Galilee Fruit Ltd., which also included an ownership of the Kapulsky cake factory and the remains of the chain which was in the stage of extermination.

 

The new owners continued to operate the cake factory and began remanufacturing the factory's chilled cakes under the Kapulsky brand instead of the Rich brand. Now Vita's owners are looking for franchisees to operate the chain's branches. Mamon has learned that the franchise's price ranges between NIS 100-150,000 ($27-40,000) according to the branch's size.

 

The first branch of the Kapulsky chain owned by Vita was opened recently in the Netanya industrial zone, on the ground floor of the Kapulsky cake factory.

 

The branch, which is dominated by the color red, is currently in a run-in period and is charging reduced prices for its menu. The chain's branches which will serve both as a café and as a confectionary selling cakes and pastries to take home.

 

'Feeling of nostalgia among public'

Oshik Efraim, Vita Galilee Fruit's CEO, told Mamon: "We decided to reopen the Kapulsky chain after surveys we conducted showed there was a lot of nostalgia among the public for the brand and a craving for the old-fashioned cakes.

 

"Our advantage is that we specialize in cakes and we have a factory. The chain will receive all its cakes and pastries from Kapulsky's main factory in Netanya. In addition, Vita Galilee Fruit will provide the branches' kitchens with pasta and vegetables."

 

The chain's menu will be a light one and will include salads, pasta, sandwiches and pastries.

 

The Kapulsky chain was founded by the Kapulsky family as a pastry shop in Tel Aviv. It had three branches, the most famous one on the corner of Allenby and Bialik Streets.

 

Decades later, the founders' son, David Kapulsky, developed the brand into a café chain, which was one of the country's pioneers in the 1970s. In its prime the chain had 50 branches across the country, some operated by franchisers – an innovative method at the time. In the 1990s the chain lost its popularity after young people began yearning for new chains.

 

In 2002 David Kpaulsky sold the chain to the Vita food company for $1.7 million. The chain found it difficult to deal with the thriving espresso bars, and the new owners were interested in a cake factory and not in a coffee chain.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.14.11, 12:48
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