On a recent Saturday night, diners in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, took their rightful places at the natural wine bars, pizza shops and taquerias across the neighborhood.
Good luck finding a seat at the Yemeni coffee chain.
Qahwah House, a Yemeni coffeehouse with 26 locations in nine states, was standing room only just after 8 p.m. College students crowded around kettles of spiced coffee to study for exams and occasionally flirt. A group of fashionable women clinked tea glasses, having just come from a birthday dinner.
Behind the counter, the floor manager took a phone call: He was needed at the Qahwah House across town in Bay Ridge — a line had wrapped throughout the cafe.
Go ahead: Have that coffee after 2 p.m. Yemeni immigrants are making their mark on the U.S. coffee industry and shifting cafe culture late into the night. In the last decade, the number of Yemeni coffeehouses that stay open well after sundown has ballooned, beginning in Michigan and fanning out toward Texas, New York and California.
Delah Coffee has opened four coffeehouses in the Bay Area since 2022. Haraz Coffee House, which first opened in Dearborn, Mich., in 2021, now counts 22 shops in its empire. And while Mokafé isn’t the largest of these growing chains — it has seven cafes in New York and New Jersey — but its Times Square location, which stays open until 2 a.m. on weekends, is impossible to miss.
The expansion of these coffeehouses reflects increasing demand for late-night spaces that decenter alcohol. That is perhaps best on display during Ramadan, which began on Feb. 28.
At Qahwah Houses across the country, the closing hours range from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends, said Ibrahim Alhasbani, its founder. This month, the coffee shops stay open as late as 3 a.m. to host those convening after their fast-breaking meals.
That’s the idea at least. “There is no location that closes on time,” Mr. Alhasbani said. “The customers keep coming. If we say 3, that means 4.”
In Yemen, Mr. Alhasbani’s family has been cultivating coffee for more than 300 years. He opened his first coffeehouse in Dearborn in 2017, eager to create a late-night alternative for Muslims who do not drink.
“If I wanted to hang out with my friends, where was I going to go?” said Mr. Alhasbani, who opened the Williamsburg location in 2020. “There was no place like that.”
Other cafes in the area catering to pet owners, kombucha fans and kava users have come and gone over the last few years. Yemeni coffee stuck.
“It’s not just a cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s a whole experience.”
This wave of Yemeni American specialty coffeehouses began less than a decade ago near Dearborn, the first Arab-majority city in the country, said Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a coffee roaster and historian. They showcase the storied coffee tradition of Yemen, where Arabica beans were cultivated for centuries. Mr. Alkhanshali estimates that there are more than 100 Yemeni coffeehouses in the United States — and that the number is quickly growing.
“It’s a pattern of immigrant cultures,” Mr. Alkhanshali said, pointing to Vietnamese nail salons and Cambodian doughnut shops. “When one person figures something out, other people jump on it.”
Yemeni immigrants in the United States have often operated corner stores and smoke shops, he said — businesses they owned to survive. These coffeehouses represent a rare shift in the paradigm. “This isn’t a moment,” he said. “This is a movement.”
Omar Jahamee watched these cafes take off in Michigan, where he lived for several years. When he moved to the Bay Area in 2022, he and his uncle opened one of their own.
The timing couldn’t have been better: The Golden State Warriors had just trounced the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. They opened Delah Coffee, one of the first Yemeni coffeehouses in San Francisco, the morning of the championship parade. “I had a hundred customers in the shop,” said Mr. Jahamee, 21.
When the festivities concluded, many customers returned to the cafe, surprised to find it was open until 10 p.m. “By closing late, we opened up a whole different world,” he said.
At Arwa Yemeni Coffee, a cafe in Texas opening its fourth location this week, some of the busiest hours are right before closing time — as late as 1 a.m. on weekends. “In our culture, we drink coffee and tea late into the night,” said Faris Almatrahi, an owner. “It tends to be extremely packed and loud.”
When Mr. Almatrahi, 47, and his partners opened Arwa in 2022, their customers were still catching on. “We had a huge non-Muslim demographic during the day” that cleared out as the afternoon wore on, he said. At night, the customer base was predominantly Muslim.
As Yemeni cafes have expanded, the crowds have, too. “We’re starting to see other demographics socializing at night and sipping coffee,” Mr. Almatrahi said.
On the second night of Ramadan, Mariam Elhabashy’s first stop after iftar was the Qahwah House in Bay Ridge, which had opened three days before, to order an iced strawberry juice. In the past, she celebrated Ramadan at the nearest Starbucks. “This is my second time here today,” she said.
Mehraj Shafat and Azim Uddin beat her there. They were sharing a cloudy kettle of Adeni chai, a cardamom-spiced milk tea named after a port city in Yemen. “This is the perfect way to end your night,” said Mr. Shafat, 21. “Surrounded by your people.”
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