Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Yazan Soofi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Yazan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Through Arwa Yemeni Coffee, we hoped to not only shed light on the origins of coffee and aiding farmers across Yemen to flourish once again, we are in a sense, creating a home away from home.

We envisioned Arwa Yemeni Coffee to be the vessel that houses our culture and the lens that focuses on the rich history of Yemen and the Yemeni people. Our objective is to bring a small piece of Yemen to the DFW community. We worked tirelessly to create a space that would transport customers to a land outside of the DFW area. At Arwa, customers get exposed to the rich Yemeni culture by experiencing hospitable service, viewing architecture, artwork, and literatures, smelling in-house roasted coffee beans and freshly grinded spices, and, of course, tasting our foods and menu of high quality coffees and teas.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Arwa Yemeni Coffee, the first Yemeni Coffee Shop in Texas and in the South, was founded by four members that were eager to bring a little piece of Yemen to the DFW area. The founders and owners, Faris Almatrahi, Nora Soofi, Yazan Soofi and Susan Shihab have at some point had family members that once owned and/or farmed coffee in Yemen. The owners grew up enjoying the drinks and pastries offered at Arwa and with collaborative effort, decided to bring this experience to the DFW area.

At the shop we serve and offer a variety of drinks both classic and specialty Yemeni drinks made with our imported, in-house roasted, naturally sun-dried Yemeni coffee beans. These high-quality beans are characterized by their unique aroma and undertones of chocolate and fruity flavors which allow our drinks to have a unique taste. Each of our specialty drinks come from and are uniquely prepared as they are in different regions of Yemen and therefore is named after that region.
For instance, Juban- is a mountainous city in Yemen in which this drink became popular. Hence the name Jubani, meaning belonging to Juban. Adeni Tea, one of our popular drinks, is named after the city Aden in the southern region of Yemen.

What sets us apart is that when formulating all of our drinks, we ensure everyone’s preference in drinks is taken into great consideration. Anyone that has tried our drinks, whether it’s the Adeni tea, the Mofawer, Red tea or Yemeni latte, can attest to the aromatic proprietary Arwa spice blend. You can taste the caramelization of the milk and sugar infused with the spices.

We are proud to see that our vision of sharing little bit of who we are, our rich history, and culture are coming to fruition. Customers are always eager to learn and seek more information about our drinks, pastries, architecture, etc. Through our shop we hope to continue to be the best ambassadors of the Yemeni culture and Yemeni people.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our initial social media audience was built organically by customers who were typically first-time visitors of the coffee shop. We were lucky enough to have had a social media influencer stumble upon the shop prior to our official opening that definitely helped with getting our name out to our primary customer base. From there, we had a strong focus on trying to tell a story through our social media posts. Anyone can post a photo of a product on social media, but does the post have a story or passion behind it that draws your audience in?

This day in age, a social media presence is critical. It’s the primary way to establish and grow brand visibility and directly engage with your customers to build your community.

Our advise to starting a social media presence:
1. Determine your voice and position for your social media presence
2. Make it easy for customers to follow you, have a QR-code at your location or any customer-facing collateral
3. Test what type of content your audience enjoys seeing
4. Don’t be afraid to contract it out! There are many very-skilled people in this space that can fit your budget; from college kids to social media marketing agencies.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Ensure that interactions with your business aren’t only a transactional experience for customers; learn people’s names, have conversations, and, if applicable, make your space an oasis that people want to spend their time in. We have also hosted fun giveaways for customers and have organized a raffle for students. We have hosted a community day to express our gratitude to our customers that included balloon animals, stickers, and even brought in a live camel! However, the most important is to provide a consistent, honest, and quality product/service.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arwayemenicoffee.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arwayemenicoffee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArwaYemeniCoffee

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