At 11 p.m. last Friday night, a boisterous line snaked out of a brightly lit cafe a block away from Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Philadelphians chatted excitedly as they waited to order pistachio lattes, matcha, and Adeni chai at Philly’s newest Yemeni coffee shop, Shibam Coffee Co.
The national chain added Philly to its roster of U.S. locations, soft-opening last weekend, thanks to four friends: Philly native Fahad Azam and his college friend Khurram Ghayas, who looped in brother Waqas Ghayas and Texas-based friend Roshaan Ahmad.
Inside the minimalistic, neutral-toned cafe at 3748 Lancaster Ave., owners Azam, Khurram, and Waqas served order after order of coffee, chai, sandwiches, and desserts from 5 p.m. to midnight on Friday. Customers nestled into plush mid-century modern chairs at white marble tables, high-top chairs at countertops near the big windows, a custom wraparound couch from Pakistan situated around an olive tree, and still more couches in the lounge room, decorated with a Philly skyline mural and fireplace.
Glass-bulb light fixtures hanging from the copper-colored industrial ceiling cast a warm glow on the 2,600-square-foot cafe — open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, a rarity in a city where many coffee shops close before sunset.
The display case shows off cream tarts perfectly shaped like blueberries, raspberries, and mangoes; sweet cream cheese-filled honeycomb bread; and slices of rich lotus, caramel, and pistachio milk cakes from Aroma Bakery in Old City. The menu also includes house-made halal sandwiches with beef pastrami and turkey from Grad Hospital’s Prime Halal Meat Co. on ciabatta rolls from Chestnut Hill’s Baker Street Bread.
“We wanted to … work with local businesses to bring the Philadelphia vibes into Shibam,” Azam said.
The West Philly location’s coffee menu is standard to the national chain, which has 13 locations, in cities like Pittsburgh, Dearborn, Michigan, and Columbus, Ohio. Customers can sip on Yemeni cafe staples like jubani (made with coffee and the husk of coffee cherries, served with cardamom, ginger, cinnamon), adeni (Yemeni black tea, cardamom, nutmeg, milk), and mofawar (coffee served with cardamom and cream), along with additional drinks like Shibam coffee (light-roast Yemeni coffee with coffee husks, cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, and cream) and Saudi coffee (light roast with cardamon and saffron). There‘s also more usual coffee-shop drinks like brown sugar-shaken espressos, pistachio lattes, and matcha.
With the soft opening landing on the first weekend of Ramadan, many patrons came from a nearby mosque for a post-tarweeh (late-night holiday prayer) treat and gathering spot.
“We had planned to open up in December or January, but it just kept getting delayed,” Azam said. “I see it as a blessing in disguise that we opened on the first Friday of Ramadan, Alhamdulillah.”
“We want to offer a late-night hangout spot for Muslim people, as well serve the health care community in the neighborhood,” he added. “I feel like we [Muslims] need a third space year-round — we don’t go to clubs; we don’t go drinking at bars. We might as well have a coffee shop that’s more like a community center, a space that’s comfortable for everyone.”
The four owners initially planned on opening their cafe location in the Philly suburbs but pivoted when they heard the building was available.
“We were like, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ — [Lancaster Avenue] is a marquee location,” Azam said. “You’re right near Drexel University. You’re right next to UPenn Presbyterian building. And there’s a well-established community already there. It was a no-brainer.”
Azam and his friends knew they wanted to open a Shibam location together after embarking on a Yemeni cafe crawl in Dearborn. The rich, smooth flavor profile of the Shibam coffee there stood out to the four friends. But it was meeting the “humble, down-to-earth” CEO of Shibam Coffee Co., Mansour Sharha, that led them to open their own location in Philly, said Azam.
While this is the first Shibam franchise in Philly, the city’s Yemeni coffee footprint has been on a steady incline, with four cafes opening in 2025 and several on the horizon.
One of those cafes, Haraz Coffee House, is just a 12-minute walk from Shibam. But Azam doesn’t see the coffeehouse as competition, rather a friendly neighbor with the same goal: expand the Yemeni coffee-shop footprint.
For the co-owner, opening weekend of Shibam was a reflection of Philadelphians’ love for the ever-growing Yemeni cafe culture creating cherished cultural spaces for immigrant, Muslim, and diasporic communities.
“It means we are on the right track — we are passionate about [Yemeni coffee] and it shows through the amazing support we’ve been getting,” Azam said. “We want to keep this going and make sure we continue to set high standards for ourselves and our customers.”
Shibam Coffee Co., 3748 Lancaster Ave.; shibamphilly.com; instagram.com/shibam.philly; Ramadan hours (through March 19): 3 to 11 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 3 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, 3 to 11 p.m. Sunday (Hours will be updated at a later date.)
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