Why Do Yemeni Coffeehouses Seem to Be Everywhere Lately?
A couple of weeks ago, when Hamzah Nasser learned that the Israeli military had bombed the Yemeni port of Hudaydah, he knew he had a problem. His monthly coffee shipments already involved an arduous journey from the country's mountainous interior to his cafe in Dearborn, Mich. — facing warring factions on land and rebel fire by sea. Now their usual path was blocked.
'It's getting a little bit stressful,' Nasser said. A Yemeni cafe requires Yemeni coffee. And Nasser, who plans to open many more Yemeni cafes, needs a lot more beans.
Nasser, a former truck driver, opened his first Haraz Coffee House in Dearborn four years ago. Since then, he has gone from hauling parts for the likes of Ford to buying a 70,000-square-foot building in Dearborn that housed the company's vehicle prototypes. His headquarters now holds two industrial roasters and a bakery, where a pastry chef recently arrived from France to train his staff. In an office upstairs, his franchising team crunches the numbers on where Haraz should open next.
Increasingly, the answer is: everywhere. Nasser, who intends to double his locations to 60 in the next six months, originally sought to open cafes in Arab neighborhoods or near mosques. But his search has expanded to anywhere that's young and diverse, or where families will linger late into the night and buy multiple rounds of $7.95 pistachio lattes.
Chances are, the coffeehouses will wind up just a short distance from another Yemeni cafe.
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