Patrons of the Golden Gate Pub in 2019. The long-time expat hangout that opened in 2001 has closed as restaurants suffer losses due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions that prohibited indoor dining.
Ask any expat in Kyiv, and they’ve probably been to the Golden Gate Pub at least once, and likely much more often, since it opened its hallowed basement doors in 2001.
But now it is the latest casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Longtime owner Michael Don, one of Ukraine’s top restaurateurs since the mid-1990s, confirmed its closing. His il-Molin0 pizza chain, which occupies ground floor space that used to be part of the Golden Gate, will expand and take over the pub.