The 12 Best Cafes Open on Saturday in Jerusalem (2026)

Updated October 2026 · 12 picks

Cafes open on Saturday in Jerusalem are a short list: Cafe Bezalel, Cafe Sira, Bastet and Mazkeka in the centre, the original Aroma on Hillel Street, and the Austrian Hospice, the American Colony and the Educational Bookshop in the Old City and East Jerusalem, which keep normal Saturday hours. Nocturno and Cafe Yehoshua open only after dark. Twelve, below.

The list at a glance

Cafe Bezalel 8 Bezalel Street, city centre
Cafe Sira 1 Ben Sira Street, city centre
Bastet 5 Heleni HaMalka Street, Russian Compound
The Austrian Hospice Cafe Via Dolorosa, Muslim Quarter, Old City
The American Colony Hotel Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem
Educational Bookshop Salah al-Din Street, East Jerusalem
Mazkeka 3 Shoshan Street, city centre
Barood Feingold Courtyard, 31 Jaffa Road
Aroma, Hillel Street Hillel Street, city centre
Menza 10 Bezalel Street, city centre
Nocturno 7 Bezalel Street, city centre
Cafe Yehoshua 17 Azza Street, Rehavia

1. Cafe Bezalel — 8 Bezalel Street, city centre

The most dependable Saturday daytime cafe in west Jerusalem, open from the morning.

₪₪ Mid-range

Cafe Bezalel on Bezalel Street is the straightforward answer to the question this guide exists to answer. It is non-kosher, it is open on Saturday, and crucially it is open during the day rather than only after dark — Time Out lists its Saturday hours as running from the morning through to late evening.

The street it sits on, between the Bezalel art academy and Nachlaot, is the centre of what little Saturday daytime life west Jerusalem has, and the cafe fills with exactly the crowd you would expect: students, artists, secular Jerusalemites and the visitors who have worked out where to go.

It is a neighbourhood cafe rather than a destination, which on a Saturday in Jerusalem is precisely the point.

Good to know: It is closed on Friday night and open on Saturday — the opposite of what most visitors assume, so do not try it for a Friday evening coffee.

Google Maps

2. Cafe Sira — 1 Ben Sira Street, city centre

A city-centre institution that shuts for Friday night and reopens busy on Saturday.

₪₪ Mid-range

Sira sits on Ben Sira Street, in the little grid of bars and cafes behind Hillel and King George, and has been one of the fixtures of secular Jerusalem nightlife for years.

Its Shabbat pattern is a common one here and worth understanding: closed on Friday night, when the city as a whole stops, and then open and busy through Saturday. By the afternoon it is one of the more reliably populated rooms in the centre.

It runs as a cafe by day and a bar by night, so what you get depends entirely on when you arrive.

Good to know: Saturday afternoon is the sweet spot — late enough that the room has filled, early enough that it is still a cafe rather than a bar.

Google Maps

3. Bastet — 5 Heleni HaMalka Street, Russian Compound

A small vegetarian cafe on the edge of the Russian Compound, open daily through the day.

₪₪ Mid-range

Bastet is a small vegetarian cafe on Heleni HaMalka, at the edge of the Russian Compound, with a corner of pavement seating and a reputation as one of the warmer rooms in the centre of the city. It has long been a focal point for Jerusalem's LGBTQ community.

It keeps daytime hours seven days a week rather than running late, which makes it one of the few places in west Jerusalem where a Saturday breakfast or lunch is actually possible.

The menu is vegetarian throughout, the room is tiny, and on a Saturday it is busy. None of those are complaints.

Good to know: It closes in the late afternoon rather than running into the evening — this is a daytime plan, not a dinner one.

Google Maps

4. The Austrian Hospice Cafe — Via Dolorosa, Muslim Quarter, Old City

A Viennese coffee house inside the Old City, open every day, with the best rooftop in Jerusalem above it.

₪₪ Mid-range

The Austrian Hospice stands on the Via Dolorosa at the corner of the Muslim Quarter, a nineteenth-century Austrian pilgrims' guesthouse that has kept its garden cafe running as a genuine Viennese coffee house — apple strudel, Sachertorte, coffee served properly on a tray.

Because it is a church institution in the Old City rather than a west Jerusalem business, it runs a normal week and opens on Saturday like any other day. Walking in off the noise of the Via Dolorosa into a quiet Austrian garden is one of the odder and better experiences in the city.

The roof terrace above it, open to cafe visitors, gives one of the finest views over the Old City rooftops to the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives.

Good to know: There is a small charge to go up to the roof unless you are a guest — pay it. The view is the best part of the visit.

Google Maps Website

5. The American Colony Hotel — Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem

The courtyard of the old pasha's house — the most civilised coffee in Jerusalem on any day of the week.

₪₪₪ Upmarket

The American Colony occupies a nineteenth-century pasha's palace in Sheikh Jarrah, and its stone courtyard, shaded and planted and set well back from the street, has been the meeting place for journalists, diplomats and everyone else in East Jerusalem for a century.

It is in East Jerusalem, so Saturday is an ordinary day and the courtyard, the Arabesque restaurant and the Cellar Bar all run as normal. Coffee, a long lunch or an afternoon with a book all work here.

It is not cheap, and it does not feel like the rest of the city. That is exactly what people come for.

Good to know: The courtyard is the place to sit, not the indoor rooms — and the Saturday afternoon crowd is quieter than the weekday one.

Google Maps Website

6. Educational Bookshop — Salah al-Din Street, East Jerusalem

A bookshop cafe on Salah al-Din with the best English-language shelves in the city.

₪₪ Mid-range

The Educational Bookshop on Salah al-Din Street is the long-standing English-language bookshop of East Jerusalem, with a cafe upstairs among the shelves and a reading room feel to it.

Like everything else on Salah al-Din it works a normal week, so Saturday is a trading day. For a visitor who wants somewhere to sit and read on a Shabbat afternoon rather than somewhere to be seen, it is the best room in Jerusalem.

The range of books on the city and the region is deep, and the staff know the stock. Buy something.

Good to know: Salah al-Din Street is a ten-minute walk from Damascus Gate and runs a full Saturday — the cafes and bakeries along it are the easy answer if you are stuck for lunch.

Google Maps Website

7. Mazkeka — 3 Shoshan Street, city centre

Cafe by day, live music venue by night, and one of the few rooms that does both on a Saturday.

₪₪ Mid-range

Mazkeka — the name means 'distillery' — sits on Shoshan Street near the municipality and is one of the engines of independent Jerusalem culture: a cafe and workspace during the day, a live music venue and recording studio at night.

It is run as a non-profit arts space rather than as a conventional business, which is part of why its week does not follow the usual pattern, and it is a reliable place to find people and coffee on a day when much of the centre is shut.

Check the programme before you go. On a Saturday night it may well be a gig rather than a cafe.

Good to know: Look at what is on before you walk over — the room changes completely depending on whether there is a show.

Google Maps Website

8. Barood — Feingold Courtyard, 31 Jaffa Road

Hidden in a courtyard off Jaffa Road, open on Shabbat, and a Jerusalem institution.

₪₪₪ Upmarket

Barood sits in the Feingold Courtyard, a small stone yard set back off Jaffa Road that most people walk past without noticing. It has been there for decades and has outlasted almost everything around it.

It is more bistro and bar than cafe, but it opens on Shabbat when the rest of Jaffa Road is shuttered, and the courtyard tables in the afternoon are among the pleasanter places to sit in the centre of the city.

The cooking leans Balkan and Sephardi, the regulars have been coming for years, and the room has a character that newer places cannot manufacture.

Good to know: The courtyard entrance is easy to miss from Jaffa Road — look for the arch rather than a shopfront.

Google Maps

9. Aroma, Hillel Street — Hillel Street, city centre

The original Aroma, and the one branch of the chain that opens on Shabbat.

₪₪ Mid-range

The first Aroma opened on Hillel Street in Jerusalem, and the chain grew from it into the country's default coffee shop. Nearly every other branch is kosher and therefore closed on Shabbat. This one is not.

Nobody will claim it is the most interesting cafe in Jerusalem. What it is, on a Saturday, is open, central, air-conditioned, reliable, and serving the same bread, salads and iced coffee as always.

For a visiting family that just needs somewhere everyone will eat, on the one day of the week when that is hard to find, it earns its place on this list.

Good to know: This is the Hillel Street branch specifically — the other Jerusalem Aromas are kosher and shut from Friday afternoon.

Google Maps

10. Menza — 10 Bezalel Street, city centre

Next door to Cafe Bezalel, and the other half of the only street in west Jerusalem that works on Saturday.

₪₪₪ Upmarket

Menza sits a few doors from Cafe Bezalel on the same stretch of Bezalel Street, and between them the two define the small pocket of west Jerusalem where a Saturday actually happens.

It is a bar and bistro that serves through the day, non-kosher, and good for a long lunch rather than a quick coffee. In the evening it turns into one of the better places to drink in the centre.

If Bezalel is full — and on a Saturday afternoon it often is — this is the answer twenty metres away.

Good to know: Treat Bezalel Street as the plan rather than any single address: if one is full, the other will not be.

Google Maps

11. Nocturno — 7 Bezalel Street, city centre

Opens after dark on Saturday — the place the city goes the moment Shabbat ends.

₪₪ Mid-range

Nocturno, in the Designers in the City building on Bezalel Street, is one of the best-loved cafes in Jerusalem and a fixture of the city's cultural life. It is on this list with a clear warning attached.

Its Saturday hours begin roughly an hour after sundown, when Shabbat goes out, and run to the early hours. That makes it a Saturday night cafe rather than a Saturday one: in December it opens around five, in June not until well after eight.

Once it does open, it is among the liveliest rooms in the city, because a great deal of Jerusalem is waiting for exactly that moment.

Good to know: Check sundown for the date before you plan around it — the difference between a winter and a summer Saturday here is three hours.

Google Maps

12. Cafe Yehoshua — 17 Azza Street, Rehavia

The Rehavia classic, non-kosher, open from Saturday evening.

₪₪ Mid-range

Cafe Yehoshua on Azza Street has been the Rehavia cafe for years — the one where the neighbourhood's writers, academics and politicians end up, and a reliably good kitchen behind the coffee.

Like Nocturno, its Saturday is an evening rather than a day: listings put it opening from around half past eight on a Saturday night. It is non-kosher, which is what makes opening at all possible.

Azza Street on a Saturday night, once the cafes along it come back to life, is one of the pleasanter walks in west Jerusalem.

Good to know: Evening only on Saturday. For a Yehoshua breakfast, come any other day of the week — it is what the place is best at.

Google Maps

Frequently asked questions

Why are so few cafes open on Saturday in Jerusalem?

Two separate reasons, and it helps to keep them apart. A kosher certificate from the rabbinate requires a business to close from Friday afternoon until Saturday night, so every kosher cafe in Jerusalem — which is most of them — is shut by definition. On top of that, Jerusalem's long-standing arrangement is that restaurants and entertainment may open on Shabbat while shops and commerce in the Jewish parts of the city generally do not, and opening has at times drawn organised protest. The result is that the cafes serving coffee on a Saturday morning are almost all non-kosher, and almost all in a handful of city-centre streets.

Can you get coffee in Jerusalem on Saturday morning?

Yes, but you need to know where. Cafe Bezalel on Bezalel Street is the most reliable daytime answer in the Jewish part of the city, Bastet near the Russian Compound opens through the day, and Cafe Sira is open on Saturday although it closes on Friday night. The Old City and East Jerusalem are a different world entirely: the Austrian Hospice cafe, the American Colony and the Salah al-Din Street cafes run a completely ordinary Saturday.

What is the difference between a cafe that opens Saturday and one that opens 'motzei Shabbat'?

A great deal, if you want breakfast. Several well-known Jerusalem cafes list Saturday hours that begin roughly an hour after sundown, when Shabbat ends — Nocturno and Cafe Yehoshua are the usual examples. They are genuinely open on Saturday, but only from the evening, and in winter that can mean five o'clock while in summer it means after eight. Both are in this guide, clearly marked, because a Saturday night out is a real plan. Just do not turn up at eleven in the morning.

Are the cafes open on Saturday in Jerusalem kosher?

Essentially none of them, because the two things are mutually exclusive under rabbinate certification. If you keep kosher, Saturday in Jerusalem is the day for hotel dining rooms, which serve their own guests, and for food bought before Shabbat. The cafes here are for people who are not keeping kosher that day, or who are eating in East Jerusalem.

Is East Jerusalem open on Saturday?

Yes. East Jerusalem and the Christian and Muslim quarters of the Old City run on a normal week, so Saturday is an ordinary trading day: cafes, bakeries, sweet shops and restaurants are open as usual, and it is Friday and Sunday that see closures instead. For a visitor stuck without lunch on Shabbat, walking through Damascus Gate or up Salah al-Din Street is the simplest solution there is.

Do Saturday opening hours in Jerusalem change?

They do, more than in most cities, and sometimes abruptly. Individual cafes have opened on Saturdays, drawn sustained protest and then stopped again — the Agrippas Street case in 2026 is the recent example. Treat any Saturday list for Jerusalem, this one included, as a starting point and check the business directly on the day, particularly if you are travelling across the city for it.

1. Cafe Bezalel — 8 Bezalel Street, city centre

2. Cafe Sira — 1 Ben Sira Street, city centre

3. Bastet — 5 Heleni HaMalka Street, Russian Compound

4. The Austrian Hospice Cafe — Via Dolorosa, Muslim Quarter, Old City

5. The American Colony Hotel — Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem

6. Educational Bookshop — Salah al-Din Street, East Jerusalem

7. Mazkeka — 3 Shoshan Street, city centre

8. Barood — Feingold Courtyard, 31 Jaffa Road

9. Aroma, Hillel Street — Hillel Street, city centre

10. Menza — 10 Bezalel Street, city centre

11. Nocturno — 7 Bezalel Street, city centre

12. Cafe Yehoshua — 17 Azza Street, Rehavia

Frequently asked questions

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