Mokafé coffee chain opening first Long Island shop

A Queens-based coffee chain will bring flavors of Yemen and Guatemala to Long Island this year. 

Mokafé, a specialty coffee chain with eight shops in New York City and New Jersey, will open its first Long Island location, in Melville, in September, co-owner Youssef Mubarez said.

The Melville shop, which is expected to become a flagship location, will be Mokafé’s first store with a  drive-through and a sizable parking lot, he said.

Mubarez, of Plainview, said his local residency was one of the reasons behind the chain’s planned expansion on Long Island.

“It’s definitely a major market. I think we have a unique product, one that Long Island is missing,” he said.

The shop in Melville will occupy a 3,200-square-foot space at 606 Broadhollow Rd. that was vacated by a Cheezly’s restaurant a few years ago, said Jim Dalto, a managing member at Lighthouse Commons LLC, the Carle Place-based company that owns the Melville building.

Before it was a Cheezly’s, the building was a KFC fast-food eatery that closed in 2019, Dalto said.

Mubarez, his father, Abdul, and brother Tarik, all of whom are natives of Yemen, co-own Mokafé with two other partners — Abe Ayesh, a native of Palestine who runs the chain’s three New Jersey coffee shops, and Jorge Riquelme, a coffee scientist who hails from Guatemala, Mubarez said.

The name Mokafé is a fusion of the words “mocha” and “coffee,” and the business’ name is a nod to Mocha, a historic port in southwestern Yemen, where the mocha coffee bean originated.

“Mocha’s founding in the 14th century is traditionally associated with the Muslim holy man Shaykh Shādhilī, who is supposed to have introduced coffee drinking to Arabia,” according to Britannica, which said that coffee for European and Middle East markets was Mocha’s chief export from the 15th century.

Headquartered in Long Island City, Queens, Mokafé opened its first shop in November 2023 in Queens’  Astoria neighborhood.

“We planned on just wholesaling beans but decided to open up a shop to help boost sales. Then the shop started doing well, and we went all in,” Mubarez said.

The chain's eight shops include three in Brooklyn and one in Times Square. 

Mokafe’s coffee beans are from farms in Yemen and Guatemala, said Mubarez, adding, “We work directly with them.”

The coffee chain sells hot- and cold-brewed drinks, bags of ground coffee and beans, sandwiches and pastries.

The comfy, welcoming shops have become late-night hangouts that are bustling on weekends, when some locations close at 1 a.m., Mubarez said.

About 15 full- and part-time workers will be hired for the Melville shop, he said.

In addition to the Melville store, another New Jersey location will open in the next six weeks, in Fort Lee, Mubarez said.

In June, Mokafé announced that it was seeking franchisees to expand the chain into 30 states across the U.S. Midwest, Southwest, Northwest, Northeast and South.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.