Last Ramadan, Muslim Nashvillians had one late-night cafe option, The Horn. The Somali-owned chai and coffee house re-opened each night to long lines of customers breaking their daytime fast. Now, one year later, the city has two more Muslim-owned shops that want to make this sober nightlife culture a year-round thing.
More: This Palestinian cafe owner finds strength in his faith after airstrikes resume in Gaza
At 10 p.m. on a recent weeknight, there is not a single seat open at Deir Cafe in Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. The daylight bulbs in the shop make it feel like this could be the morning commuter rush, but many customers are in their tarawih best, wearing embroidered gowns with matching hijabs for the evening prayer service during Ramadan.
Owner Yousef Gumiza was born in Nashville, but raised in Gaza, where his mom is from. When he recently returned to Middle Tennessee, one of the things he missed most about the Middle East was the late-night scene.
“We love night cafes. Like, that’s our thing. People hang out till 1 a.m. Not a lot of people just want to hang out in bars. They would want, you know, quiet to hang out. Like, ‘let’s do a decaf coffee, matcha’ or whatever they want to drink, and ‘let’s have like some bites,’” he said. “And now, Nashville is heading toward that point.”
So, he decided to be one of the first building that cafe culture here. And he named his spot, Deir, in homage to where his family is from.
“So the meaning of it is like a monastery, you know, where the priests pray and live and all that,” he explained. “My grandparents’ city is called like — let’s say — ‘monastery of dates.’ So it’s like how much this city love dates, like worshiping dates. People love coffee to that level of affection, you know, so I used that as, like, a double meaning.”
Gumiza found space in a popular neighborhood and decorated in a mix of trendy jewel tones and live plants, plus art from back home. There’s a woodblock in the entryway in the shape of Palestine’s pre-1946 borders, filled with olive branches. A still life hanging in the hallway depicts Palestinian foods like manakish, flatbreads covered in za’atar, and Ka’ak Al Quds, or Jerusalem bagels.
Rachel Iacovone WPLN NewsAn art print hanging in Deir Cafe highlights popular Palestinian foods.
Deir’s menu is a similar mix of trending flavors and those nostalgic for Gumiza.
“I was like, ‘I want to invent something from my history.’ And even the names of them — like, one of them is ‘roman,’ which is a word for pomegranate … Like, ‘passion’ for passion habibi, and ‘ward’ for rose and ‘khokh’ for peach.”
The cross-cultural representation continues in the seating area. There, the entrance for a prayer room sits adjacent to a wall covered in butcher paper where guests have signed in. Many have drawn Palestine’s flag, but dozens have also included theirs — Kurdistan, Sudan, Puerto Rico and more.
Rachel Iacovone WPLN NewsA wall in Deir Cafe is covered in butcher paper that guests have signed, many including their country’s flag.
“That’s honestly one of the most beautiful things because, you know, the conflict in the Middle East, that’s kind of hard for everyone,” Gumiza said. “So I loved how people can actually transfer their feelings and their love into words.”
Across town, at Haraz Coffee House in East Nashville, a similar scene plays out nightly — though this new shop is a franchise of a Yemeni-owned chain.
“This concept is not new in the Middle East,” said Sam Ali, who leads Haraz’s marketing. “They’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, and now, it’s kind of being brought here to the United States.”
Haraz’s menu leans into its role as a gateway to coffee in the Arab world. Its name comes from a mountain range in Yemen where the company, and many other coffeeshops, source their coffee.
“The soil, where it is, the elevation, a lot of things just happened to all come together to make that one of the best places in the world to grow coffee beans,” Ali said.
Rachel Iacovone WPLN NewsA pistachio latte and bee bites slice at Haraz Coffee House in East Nashville
These Yemeni beans are brewed in-house with spices from the region, like cardamom, ginger, cinnamon and even saffron. And you’ll spot on many tables, not just the heavy gold coffeepots but sweets like baklava, cheesecake and Haraz’s popular “bee bites.” The baked bread is sliced in the shape of pizza, stuffed with cream cheese and drizzled with honey.
“It’s something for everyone,” Ali said. “And I think that was the biggest thing. Like, there could be someone who’s not a coffee drinker who’s just, ‘Hey, you know, I don’t drink coffee.’ They can come in and get a mango pineapple smoothie. The sweets, I think that’s what everyone comes for.”
Haraz has another location planned for Middle Tennessee, as part of its rapid expansion since opening in the pandemic. The chain has 20 locations across the U.S. currently, and 150 more signed.
This story was reported for our daily newsletter and podcast, the NashVillager. You can find a sharable list of Nashville’s late-night coffeeshops in the corresponding edition.
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