At last year’s grand opening for Oro Nami, a kosher sushi spot in Washington, the restaurant’s splashy aesthetic — red velvet booths, multicolor clocks projected on the ceiling, dark walls, a light-up floor — did not exactly align with the clientele: Capitol Hill staffers, new Trump administration appointees, K Street lobbyists and a handful of Orthodox rabbis.

But even if Oro Nami’s atmosphere felt slightly out of place in Washington’s quiet West End neighborhood, where the city’s small Orthodox community is centered, that incongruity was no match for the excitement among observant Jews living in the nation’s capital. For years, people had been clamoring for more kosher dining options in the city, and in particular one that would be open past 8 p.m. Oro Nami seemed like the answer. 

That is, until it shut down in May, after less than a year in business. 

Now Char Bar, the meat restaurant in the West End that has been serving observant Democratic and Republican officials — and their friends and colleagues — for years, is once again the only sit-down kosher restaurant with a liquor menu. Nearly all of the area’s kosher restaurants are located in Maryland suburbs like Silver Spring and Rockville, where the bulk of the region’s Orthodox community lives. In a city that thrives on power lunches, kosher-keeping Jews have only one option. 

The closure of yet another kosher restaurant in the District has reignited one of Jewish Washingtonians’ favorite conversation topics: Why aren’t there more kosher restaurants in a city as important as the nation’s capital?

People with knowledge of the restaurant business say that the answer is straightforward, if unsatisfying: economics. The Washington metro area has more than 300,000 Jews, according to a community-wide study completed in 2017. Just 5% of them are Orthodox, and most of the Orthodox Jews live in Maryland.

“Kashrut in general in D.C. I think is tricky, because from a real estate perspective, everything is priced like a normal restaurant,” said Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, the director of Lehrhaus, a kosher restaurant in Boston that plans to expand to Washington. “It’s assuming that you’ll do a high volume of business on Fridays and Saturdays, and for larger restaurant spaces that you’ll have pretty high alcohol sales, and kosher restaurants just don’t operate that way.”

“There isn’t a concentrated district [in D.C.] where all the Orthodox Jews work. There isn’t a district where everybody is going to particular museums. Even the museums and the things that tourists do are spread out,” said Dani Klein, who runs the popular blog “YeahThatsKosher.”

In 2024, Lehrhaus announced to great fanfare that it planned to open in Washington, its second city, in 2025. But the restaurant, which bills itself as a “Jewish tavern and house of learning,” has not even broken ground on a location in D.C. yet. (“We’re 100% in on D.C,” Schwartz promised. “We’re not dismayed in any way.”)

Dani Klein, who runs the popular blog “YeahThatsKosher,” said that the layout of the city doesn’t help.

“There isn’t a concentrated district [in D.C.] where all the Orthodox Jews work. There isn’t a district where everybody is going to particular museums. Even the museums and the things that tourists do are spread out,” said Klein. He compared it to Midtown Manhattan, where he works in corporate marketing. Due to its proximity to major tourist attractions such as Times Square, Broadway and Central Park, along with scores of office towers, the neighborhood has a wealth of kosher options, though he noted several restaurants have closed recently.

He described Chicago as a more apt parallel to D.C., although Washington actually has more kosher options downtown. 

“As you go further north [in Chicago], outside of downtown, and you start going to where the Jewish community lives, then you get massive pockets of kosher,” said Klein. Washington’s kosher restaurants are mostly in the suburbs, too. 

Char Bar’s owner, Michael Chelst, does not primarily earn a living from running a kosher restaurant. He also works in the mortgage business, and he recently took over operating Moti’s Market, the kosher grocery store in Rockville. 

“I call us a ‘likely for profit’ business. We’re not a nonprofit,” Chelst told Jewish Insider recently. “I get frustrated when people go, ‘Oh, why don’t you do more of this and that.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, we’re just trying to keep it open and keep it going for our community and for the people there.’” Still, the vast majority of Char Bar’s customers are tourists, according to Chelst. 

Despite the addition of Oro Nami last year, 2025 was Char Bar’s highest-revenue year since it opened in 2014. (Chelst previously ran a different kosher spot, Eli’s, in the same location.) Chelst said he thinks Washington would benefit from a dairy restaurant, even if it competes with Char Bar.

“I’m sure that would hurt our business, but I wouldn’t be upset if one opened, because that would be good for the community,” said Chelst. 

People know there’s an appetite for more options, even if the money isn’t quite there to support them. 

“I get a call, I’d say, every other month or so from someone who’s very interested in starting up any of a range of Kosher cuisine enterprises here,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad). “I know of a few currently still considering doing so. They’re watching downtown business lunch traffic, and when that picks up, I think you’ll see another one or two actually get established.”

Other options have opened and closed over the years. Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who went to prison on corruption charges, ran a kosher deli for a period in the early 2000s. An upscale kosher French restaurant called L’Etoile closed in 2002 after three years. The local Israeli chain Shouk closed last year, in part due to boycotts by anti-Israel activists. In earlier eras, when the local Jewish community was actually centered in the District and not the suburbs, kosher options were not so hard to come by; following the Civil War, six kosher restaurants were operating in D.C.

“I urge the relatively new kosher-keeping residents of Washington, D.C., to understand the privilege that they have to live in this time,” said Aaron Keyak, a Democratic consultant who moved to Washington nearly 20 years ago. “And with the advent of all these food delivery apps, you can reach into the suburbs and get everything from kosher Chinese to pizza.”

But despite the kvetching from locals, Washington’s kosher restaurant scene has not actually been stagnant in recent years. Oh Mama Grill, a casual Israeli-style falafel and shawarma restaurant, opened in Adams Morgan in 2022 and is still operating. During the academic year, anyone — whether affiliated with George Washington University or not — can visit Zingers, a kosher restaurant in the GW Hillel that opened in 2023 and is operated by the university’s dining operation, as part of the school’s pledge to provide kosher options for Jewish students. Zingers serves sandwiches and bowls alongside what it deems “the best chicken sandwich in Foggy Bottom.” At $12, the sandwich can compete with non-kosher options. 

“People eat there because the food is good,” said GW Hillel’s executive director, Daniel Novick. “A lot of non-Jewish students are eating there.”

There are even now kosher deli sandwiches available for purchase in the cafeteria at Longworth, one of the congressional office buildings. 

Other kosher options in the city include Pow Pow, a vegan Asian restaurant with two locations in the city, and Baked By Yael, a bakery across from the zoo in Woodley Park that sells pastries, challah, bagels and cake pops. They are certified by a kashrut agency operated by local Modern Orthodox rabbis — so while some strictly religious Jews may not eat there, the creation of DC Kosher to give the seal of approval to local plant-based restaurants was a boon to most of the city’s observant Jews.

“I urge the relatively new kosher-keeping residents of Washington, D.C., to understand the privilege that they have to live in this time,” said Aaron Keyak, a Democratic consultant who moved to Washington nearly 20 years ago. “And with the advent of all these food delivery apps, you can reach into the suburbs and get everything from kosher Chinese to pizza.”

“People are always kvetching about why there aren’t more establishments,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad). “But once they open, the proprietors feel that the community doesn’t show enough support.” 

D.C. is a foodie city, at least for the non-kosher keepers. Two Washington restaurants appeared on The New York Times’ vaunted “50 Best Restaurants” list last year. Don’t expect to find kosher restaurants on the list — but that doesn’t mean the city’s kosher food scene is a lost cause.

Shemtov, one of the best-known Orthodox rabbis in Washington, had a blunt message to Jewish Washingtonians about the local food scene.

“People are always kvetching about why there aren’t more establishments,” said Shemtov. “But once they open, the proprietors feel that the community doesn’t show enough support.” 

It was like the now-famous Barack Obama line from the 2016 Democratic National Convention, when he urged Democrats to vote in that year’s elections. Don’t boo. Vote.

Shemtov’s message is similar. Don’t kvetch. Eat. 

On Thursday morning, as Jews around the world woke to news of an antisemitic attack that left two young people dead in Washington, the team at Lehrhaus, a kosher restaurant near Boston, prepared for another day of service. That night, dozens of people — young and old, Orthodox and secular, Jewish and non-Jewish — stopped by this Jewish tavern and house of learning to gather with community and, of course, to eat delicious food. 

Among the guests at the popular Somerville, Mass., restaurant on Thursday night was Gov. Maura Healey, a first-time visitor to a place that has become an institution for Boston’s Jewish community since it opened in 2023. She spent nearly an hour there talking to diners and meeting Lehrhaus’ staff.

“I wanted them to know that I share their heartbreak and outrage over the murders of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, and that antisemitism has absolutely no place in Massachusetts,” Healey, a Democrat, told Jewish Insider in a statement. “Lehrhaus is a testament to the strength and spirit of the Jewish community in Massachusetts, especially during the most difficult times.”

At a Thursday morning meeting among senior leaders of Boston Jewish organizations, Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, the director of Lehrhaus, suggested that Healey should stop by in the coming days. Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council, brought the idea to Healey — and within hours, she agreed to visit.

“Maybe not 10 or 15 minutes after Charlie and I spoke, the governor called me sometime before 10 a.m., and we had the kind of chat that we often have at times like this, where she’s expressing her concern, asking about the community, asking about what people are feeling and needing,” Burton said. “One of the things that we talked about was this issue of spaces of Jewish gathering, and this larger question of how to convey that Jews belong and Jews are valued, and Jewish spaces are valued, and it’s safe to gather.” 

By the time Healey stopped by, the restaurant was nearly full, with people sampling Jewish cuisine and Jewish-inspired cocktails from around the world. In the library, a class was going on — so packed that Healey had to wave rather than walking in to address the attendees. 

“I told her about Lehrhaus, about what we’re doing. I mentioned that we have the best fish and chips in Boston, according to Eater, and she definitely should come back and try them,” said Schwartz. 

With Healey’s visit, she came to “just hang out and speak to people, and just be present in a space that expresses the best of Jewish life, even in moments of real tragedy and pain,” Schwartz added. 

Like other Jewish institutions, Lehrhaus is well aware of security concerns, and regularly examines its security measures amid antisemitic threats. But it is not the kind of place where guests will find armed guards or metal detectors. 

“We understand that as a public-facing tavern and house of learning, where one of our main functionalities is being a bar and restaurant, there’s a different type of security posture that we have to have,” said Schwartz. “The type of security that we have is going to be very different than a museum or a synagogue or an embassy, but will still be present.” 

Lehrhaus is planning to open a second location in Washington, but they have not yet announced a timeline for the project.