Qahwah House hosting second annual Yemeni Cultural Day
The Dearborn event aims to bring people together and will showcase Yemeni food, a fashion show, music and coffee.
Qahwah House is branching out, hoping to add 15 locations around the U.S. by next year in states like New York, New Jersey and Texas.
Qahwah House’s Michigan Ave. location is hosting its second annual Cultural Day Sunday to educate people about Yemeni culture and heritage.
Ibrahim Alhasbani is the founder of Qahwah House, a Yemeni café, which opened in 2017.
“The idea about Qahwah House… was to build a bridge between different cultures,” he says.
Alhasbani was born in Sana’a, Yemen. In Yemen he worked in business administration, with brands like Red Bull and Nestlé. He moved to the United States in 2011, later moving to Michigan from New York in 2016 and opening shop to educate people about Yemeni coffee culture.
Alhasbani says a lot of people aren’t aware that Yemen is the birthplace of commercial coffee.
“I want to tell everyone, we are behind every smile in the morning. So when you wake up and you go to work, you’re in bad mood. You’re going to start smiling when you’re drinking coffee and we bring coffee to the world.”
He says it took a year of experimenting with making coffee at home before he got to that point. Now Qahwah House is branching out, hoping to add 15 locations around the U.S. by next year in states like New York, New Jersey and Texas.
Alhasbani says he’s celebrating Yemeni culture and heritage through his coffee shop to bring people from diverse backgrounds together as a way to educate people about how Yemenis live on an everyday basis, and not what they hear on the news.
“I want to be proud of being a Yemeni. I want to be proud of being me, how we’re gonna be proud? When we show our culture… (and) experience(s) to the others.”
The cultural show will showcase Yemeni food, a fashion show, music and coffee.
Cultural Day will be held on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 1 p.m. at the Michigan Ave. location, 22000 Michigan Ave, Dearborn, MI 48124.
All photos courtesy of Qahwah House.
Listen to Qahwah House founder Ibrahim Alhasbani talk about honoring Yemeni culture.
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