Cafes bring new late-night culture to West County, St. Charles (2024)

A group of hijab-wearing women chat animatedly in the back corner of the cafe while sipping Adeni chai out of clear glass cups. Couples push tables together near the entry, so they can sit together and share bites of freshly baked honeycomb bread and Biscoff cheesecake.

Nearly every seat inside the bustling cafe is filled, with packs of young people milling about outside.

It’s 11 p.m. on historic Main Street in St. Charles, and Mocha Point Coffee is hopping. The specialty is Yemeni coffee and chai, along with unique desserts like the pistachio tres leches.

Unlike typical late-night hotspots such as bars or clubs, there’s no alcohol served and no dancefloor. This new coffee shop is one of three Muslim-owned cafes bringing unexpected late-night options to St. Charles and west St. Louis counties.

The vibes are notably chill. These are places to hang out with friends, drink chai, indulge in a sweet treat, smoke some hookah and be reminded of a culture and place those left behind to come to this country.

Dalia Al-Sagr, 20, is back home in Maryland Heights from studying in college in Minnesota. She is sitting in Mocha Point with her younger sister, Amani, 15, and their mom, Jenny. They’ve already been here a few times before, even though it opened just last month.

“I love seeing every background and culture here,” Dalia said. The crowd inside has people from Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. Her family is Palestinian.

“Growing up Arab in St. Louis, I’ve had to hide parts of myself out of the fear of being called names,” she said. Here, surrounded by people who understand her faith and culture, with Arabic music playing in the background, she feels free to be herself.

“It feels safe here,” Amani said. Their mom said she remembers visiting her husband’s family in Jordan after they were married. Family members stayed up until 3 or 4 a.m. — joking, eating snacks, hanging out — every night of their six-week visit.

“It’s literally part of the Arab culture to be drinking coffee late at night,” Dalia said, as she sips dark Yemeni chai.

The co-owner, Sarem Othman, was also born and raised in St. Louis, but his parents are originally from Yemen. He has cousins back home who have connections in agriculture. Othman and his brother had worked in restaurants here and noticed that trendy Yemeni coffee shops were popping up in larger cities. They weren’t sure if the concept would work in a mid-sized metro with a far smaller Arab population, but they decided to take a chance.

Yemen’s coffee roots reach back over five centuries — among the earliest regions where coffee was cultivated. The cafe’s website describes the beverage’s beginnings in the historic port city of Mocha, where Yemenites brewed and consumed coffee, recognized by spiritually devoted Sufi Muslims for its energizing properties.

“Originally, coffee shops were made popular by scholars,” Othman said. They would sit together late at night drinking coffee, reflecting, pondering and debating. He wanted to create a place where the community could gather and also welcome those unfamiliar with the culture and tastes. He says about half his customers walk in to try the food and drink as a completely new experience. He assures them they can trade any drink order if they don’t like it.

So far, they’ve had a great response from the customers arriving at night.

“We’re still trying to get the morning people,” he said.

Over in West County, two more Muslim-owned eatries are drawing eclectic crowds.

George Simon, the owner of Sedara Sweets and Eats, opened a second location in Manchester in 2022 after launching in Affton in 2019. He’s a native St. Louisan, and his family is from Lebanon. His wife is an immigrant from Iraq.

They noticed a lack of places to buy authentic Middle Eastern sweets or Arab coffee, so they decided to start Sedera, which also serves Arab-style pizzas and flatbreads. During their first year in West County, they kept normal business hours.

Last Ramadan in March, however, Simon decided to stay open until after the last special evening prayer at the mosque. Customers would show up around 11 p.m. and stay until 2 a.m., he said.

“The place was packed every single night,” he said. The crowds have thinned since the Ramadan peak, but he’s decided to keep the late-night hours on the weekends. In the evenings, customers can order hookah, a table-top water pipe to their booths.

“We’re the only place in West County that offers hookah,” he said. “It brought in a younger, hipper crowd. It’s kind of a halal nightlife.”

On a recent Saturday night, Beyene Amor, of Chesterfield, is there with her husband and their two young children. She’s Algerian and her husband is Syrian. They used to travel to Chicago to eat traditional Arab food and sweets.

“It’s really exciting that we’re growing as a community, and we have these options here,” Amor said. She’s eating knafeh, a dessert made with shredded phyllo dough layered with a creamy, sweet cheese and soaked with simple syrup. Their five-year-old is licking a large rainbow-colored ice cream cone. Amor appreciates that the restaurant will be open for several more hours this evening, but the young family is wrapping things up around 9:30 p.m.

“This is probably the latest for us,” she said, motioning to their 8 month old, who is calmly lounging in the deeply cushioned booth. She doesn’t want to push their luck with the baby.

Less than a mile west on Manchester, another unusual dessert spot is catering to the late-night crowd.

Yazan Fawwaqa is co-owner of Twisted Rolls and Chimney Cakes, which is tucked in a strip mall in Winchester. His business partner spotted the traditional Hungarian Chimney Cakes, or Kürtőskalács, in Europe and thought they might take off in America. The pastry is made from a sweet yeast dough that is rolled into a long rope and baked around a cylinder. This cone is coated in butter, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and filled with the customer’s choice of ice cream. The menu also offers crepes and waffles, mini pancakes, shakes and Italian sodas.

Fawwaqa had worked in local restaurants for several years and was looking for a business opportunity. They opened the shop last October and also benefited from the Ramadan boom in business — those who would be fasting during the day enjoyed the sugar rush until late into the night. Given the diverse crowd in the store, several trying the chimney cake for the first time, it seems fitting that an immigrant from Palestine was serving them a Hungarian dessert.

Maira Waqar, 17, of Chesterfield, had heard about the shop from her friends and seen the buzz on social media during Ramadan. She finally brought her family here, so they could try it for themselves. Maira ordered the tiramisu shake and some pistachio ice cream.

“It was really good,” she said. “I definitely will be coming back.”