New Haven’s Yemeni coffee boom grows to four cafes in under a year
New Haven’s coffee map is filling in fast with a distinctly Yemeni flavor, Hoodline reported Monday: Arwa Coffee opened on Orange Street, M2 Mocha followed on Ashmun Street, and Jabal Coffee House and Qahwah House are both aiming for fall debuts downtown - four Yemeni cafes in less than a year.
Arwa Coffee, at 335 Orange St., is co-owned by Valeed Hussain and his brother Salman. Hussain, who is Pakistani, told the Yale Daily News he was inspired to bring the concept to New Haven after visiting an Arwa location in Texas while visiting family. Arwa is part of a franchise that started in Texas in 2022 and is now one of the fastest-growing names in a crowded national field.
For Hussain, the appeal goes beyond the menu. He told the Yale Daily News that Yemeni cafes fill the role bars play in other countries - spaces where people in Yemen and neighboring regions gather, sometimes until 4 a.m. - and that he and his brother wanted to recreate that social atmosphere in the United States. Muhammad Aziz, a Yale senior lecturer of Arabic and a board member of the National Yemeni Arab American Association, is a regular at the Orange Street location and said Arwa has preserved the style and taste of Yemeni cafes despite its Pakistani ownership.
Across town on Ashmun Street, M2 Mocha owner Waleed Aljahmi built his shop with Yale students in mind, steps from the Yale Health Center. Unlike Arwa, M2 is independently owned, offers a discount to Yale students and faculty, and includes a back room for studying that doubles as space for club meetings or celebrations.
Both cafes serve traditional drinks - Adeni tea, Jubani, Qishr and Sana’ani coffee among them - and both stay open until 10 p.m. on weekdays. Two more are on the way: Jabal Coffee House, part of a larger chain, is planned for 808 Chapel St. this fall, and Qahwah House is set to take over ground-floor retail space at 19 Elm St., the chain’s first Connecticut location.
Aljahmi told the Yale Daily News he expects the growing competition to help rather than hurt business, saying Arab cafe owners support one another and operate like family. He also said Middle East conflicts, including Houthi attacks that have complicated shipments through the Red Sea, have disrupted the flow of Yemeni coffee to the United States; beans are now trucked to Oman and shipped from an Omani port, a workaround that raises shipping costs. Still, he said he would not source beans from anywhere else.
The boom is national. Yemeni coffee shops run by six major U.S. chains jumped 50% to 136 locations in 2025, according to the New Haven Independent; Axios, citing Technomic data, calls Yemeni cafes the fastest-growing coffee sector in the country. Three Dearborn-headquartered chains - Qahwah House, Qamaria Coffee and Haraz Coffee House - together run 121 stores across 14 states, according to Daily Coffee News.