From Dearborn to Every Corner: Yemeni Coffee Chains Are America's Fastest-Growing Coffee Sector

A cup of coffee traced back more than five centuries to the Yemeni port of Mokha is now fueling one of the fastest-growing business trends in the United States — and it's being led almost entirely by Yemeni American entrepreneurs. According to restaurant industry data firm Technomic, the number of U.S. cafes operated by major Yemeni coffeehouse chains grew roughly 50 percent in a single year, and industry reporting this month puts the total near 148 locations by the end of 2026, up from about 60 in 2024. Chains such as Qamaria, Qahwah House, and Haraz Coffee House — all with roots in or around Dearborn, Michigan, the first Arab-majority city in the United States — have each gone from a couple dozen stores to dozens more within roughly two years. Qamaria alone is projected to jump from 27 locations to 57. Technomic recently named three separate Yemeni chains to its "Future 50" list of fastest-growing restaurant brands, an unusual concentration for a single regional cuisine. The growth isn't confined to Michigan. Yemeni cafes have opened in Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and its suburbs, and cities as far from traditional Arab American population centers as Alpharetta, Georgia; Overland Park, Kansas; and Portland, Maine. Texas-based Arwa Yemeni Coffee, co-founded by Faris Almatrahi, now operates 11 cafes with roughly 30 more in development. What's driving the boom is a mix of culture, timing, and business savvy. Yemen is widely credited as the birthplace of the global coffee trade — the word "coffee" itself traces back to the port of Mokha, which for roughly two centuries had a near-monopoly on the crop before Dutch merchants smuggled seeds out to Indonesia. Almatrahi said a revival of Yemen's coffee-growing industry over the last two decades, driven by cooperatives, foundations, and young entrepreneurs, helped make a U.S. expansion viable even as an ongoing civil war back home has made it difficult for Yemeni Americans to visit. The cafes themselves lean into that heritage deliberately. Interiors are often done in warm desert tones, with archways echoing mosque design and lampshades styled after the wide-brimmed hats worn by Yemeni coffee farmers. Menus mix espresso-style drinks with traditional preparations flavored by hawaij, a Yemeni spice blend that can include cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and nutmeg. "One of the ways to actually visit without traveling there was to bring that experience to the U.S., and that was a huge passion for us when we opened our first location," Almatrahi told the Associated Press. Business owners point to another factor: a growing number of Americans, of all backgrounds, who don't drink alcohol and are looking for late-night social spaces as an alternative to bars. Many Yemeni cafes stay open past midnight, and sometimes past 3 a.m. during Ramadan, functioning as informal community hubs. "Generally in the Middle East, our nightlife is coffee, right? People hang out at coffee shops, they play cards, they talk. We wanted to bring that here," said Ahmad Badr, who owns an Arwa Yemeni Coffee franchise location in Sunnyvale, California. Almatrahi noted that most of his customers today aren't of Arab descent at all — a sign the chains have moved from serving diaspora communities to becoming mainstream American coffeehouse brands, alongside the likes of Starbucks and Dutch Bros, while keeping their Yemeni identity front and center in the branding, the drinks, and the hospitality. For a diaspora community shaped in recent years largely by news of war and displacement back home, the rapid, visible success of Yemeni-owned coffee brands across dozens of American cities offers a different kind of story — one of entrepreneurship, cultural pride, and a business model that's translating a centuries-old tradition into one of the country's hottest retail categories.