Downtown Falls Church is about to trade vape clouds for cardamom steam. Rashfa Cafe, a Yemeni coffee concept, is gearing up to open this summer at 310 S. Washington Street, where founder Abdulrahman Al Harethi plans to pour lightly roasted, spiced Yemeni coffee and serve a tight lineup of pastries while supporting growers back home in Ibb.
What the menu will look like
The roughly 1,500-square-foot spot will seat about 30 guests, turning the former smoke shop into a neighborhood café. Coffee will be roasted light-to-medium and brewed with traditional spices such as cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. The menu is expected to feature items like rawani cake, sabayah pastries and honeycomb bread, according to ARLnow.
Founder and timeline
Al Harethi describes Rashfa as a way to “bring the heritage and help the farmers in my country,” and he plans to import beans from Ibb while beginning hiring next month. WhatNow reports that the cafe is in the finishing stages of interior work and that the owner hopes to open by late June.
City records and the build-up
The City of Falls Church flagged Rashfa Café as “coming soon” in a July 2025 business update, putting the project on the radar well before most residents heard about it. That municipal listing identifies the unit as 310A S. Washington Street. City documents show the cafe was among several food businesses slated for downtown as of last summer, a sign the project has been in the works long before the recent public announcements.
Why it matters locally
Rashfa is part of a broader wave of Yemeni coffee concepts spreading across the DMV and beyond, a trend local outlets say leans into spiced, community-focused coffee houses instead of standard espresso bars. The addition of another Yemeni-focused spot in Falls Church, along with talk of nearby franchise activity, suggests locals still have plenty of appetite for neighborhood cafés that highlight origin stories and farmer relationships, per ARLnow.
For now, neighbors can keep tabs on Rashfa’s build-out and hiring notices through the coverage already published and the cafe’s social pages. If the timeline holds, the shop should be pouring its first cups in late June and adding a new cultural hangout to Falls Church’s downtown scene, according to WhatNow.
