Four college friends from Ukraine are making a new life for themselves through their shared love of food with their new cafe, Need to Eat in Poway.

Taras and Natalia Klibin opened the cafe at 12222 Poway Road, Suite 1 with Anton and Maria Ocheretin on May 3. They celebrated their grand opening in early June.

The quaint shop decorated with bright yellow decor has tables for dine-in as well as to-go service.

Customers who walk into the eatery are greeted with a display of European-style desserts — Italian macaroons, French eclairs and Ukrainian Napoleons. They can also order soups, salads and sandwiches.

A customer favorite is borscht, a traditional Ukrainian soup served with dark bread, sour cream and smoked pork belly.

The friendship began in 2008 when they studied culinary arts together at the University of Food and Trade in the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine. The four friends later paired up as couples.

Taras Klibin said the four of them came from different parts of Ukraine in their 20s to learn advanced cooking techniques. By 2012 they had each earned engineer technologists of food degrees, the equivalent of a master’s degree in the U.S., he said.

“Our student years were filled with fun adventures and a love for food,” Maria Ocheretina said in an email. “It was then that we realized our mission was to bring delicious and high-quality food to the world. Our values became food and service.”

Each has their own specialty.

Maria Ocheretina enjoys making desserts; her husband, Anton, is passionate about cocktails, coffees and teas; and Taras Klibin is interested in preparing all types of meat, including beef, pork and lamb. Natalia Klibin is the brains behind their operation. and through her inspiration and strategizing the group decided to open Need to Eat, her husband said.

Before they arrived in the U.S. — the Klibins in November 2022 and the Ocheretins in September 2023 — they each practiced their craft in their own way in the large Ukrainian city of Odesa. The Ocheretins, who are both 32, had a pastry shop and two coffee shops under the name “Masha Cake,” which is derived from a nickname for Maria. Their services included catering for weddings.

Meanwhile, the Klibins, who are also in their early 30s, opened a burger joint and ran a culinary school named Just Kitchen from 2016 to 2022.

Taras Klibin said they taught master culinary classes to children and adults. Their specialties were lessons in the cuisines of France and Georgia in Europe, as well as Mexican and Italian dishes. Other popular classes focused on preparing steaks, breakfast items and French sauces, he said.

The four friends honed their skills by traveling together to Paris, Spain, Turkey and Georgia where they tasted different foods and replicated recipes, Klibin said. Along the way, the Ocheretins had a son, Ostap, age 7, and the Klibins had their own son, Luka, age 5.

“Food is the most popular language between people who roam around the world,” Taras Klibin said. “We traveled a lot together, mostly for food trips. In every place we visited we shared food together.”

While both couples were immersed in successful food and beverage careers, their world came tumbling down on Feb. 22, 2022.

“We woke up to explosions and the realization that war had begun in our country,” Maria Ocheretina said. “We were forced to emigrate, and so we found ourselves in sunny San Diego, starting to share our love for food here. We changed continents for life, but we do not change our values – quality, taste, service and friendship.”

Taras Klibin said he and Natalia were the first to arrive in the United States with assistance from the “United for Ukraines” program available through the U.S. government. Klibin said the program helps people who lived in Ukraine before the start of the Ukraine-Russia war relocate with the proper documents.

They chose to settle in 4S Ranch to be near one of their Ukrainian friends who arrived before them, Egor Uzhakov.

Klibin said they were fortunate to come across a commercial space with kitchen equipment and a place to showcase their food. Their Need to Eat business is humming along with Taras as chef, Maria as pastry chef, Anton as bar chef, and Natalia as salesperson.

A future plan for the Klibins and Ocheretins is to open one more cafe this year at an undetermined location, Taras Klibin said.

“It’s not the first time we’ve worked together since we did it many times in Ukraine,” he said. “Absolutely we like it. We’re looking forward to having a business venture together.”

Need to Eat cafe is open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.