A husband-and-wife team that started with a mobile coffee trailer has built Dearborn's first locally owned drive-thru coffee shop into an operation pouring roughly 600 to 700 cups a day, and now they're taking the concept to the suburbs. Monday Coffee Club, founded by Jad Elarab and Tahani Smidi on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn, plans to open two additional locations in Troy and Livonia.
The shop has been operational for a little more than a year, according to WXYZ, and already employs 17 people while pulling customers from across metro Detroit. The station reports that Elarab, 28, and Smidi, 25, married in 2022 and opened the drive-thru together, growing the business from a mobile coffee trailer into an events catering business before landing on the brick-and-mortar format. Elarab has said he chose the drive-thru format specifically after watching family members struggle to get out of a car with a newborn, and he has said he had a contingency plan to keep working and making money if the business did not pan out.
Smidi has said that launching the business while starting a family was stressful, per the same WXYZ report. Regular customers have taken notice of the payoff: Dearborn resident Murad Elhaddi praised the shop's coffee and staff, while customer Angie Johnson said she keeps coming back out of loyalty even though, as she put it, Dearborn has no shortage of coffee shops to choose from.
Suburban Growth Plans Take Shape
Monday Coffee Club has not announced opening dates for either the Troy or Livonia locations, according to the station's report. But additional details about where those shops will land have surfaced elsewhere: per WhatNow, the second location is planned for 1860 E. Big Beaver Road in Troy, while a third, franchised location is set for 16815 Middlebelt Road in Livonia. WhatNow also reports that the expansion involves franchise partners, including Elarab's relative Ali Nasser, alongside co-founders Elarab, Smidi, and partner Amer El Arab.
The flagship shop sits at 23440 Michigan Avenue in West Downtown Dearborn, near civic landmarks including Dearborn Fire Station 2 and the Fort Dearborn Post Office, according to Mapcarta. On the menu, the shop offers a blend of Colombian and Mexican beans alongside regular drip coffee, and Monday Coffee Club says it uses exclusively 100% specialty-grade coffee while crafting its syrups, matcha blends, bagel spreads, and pastries in-house from scratch. That artisan approach earned regional recognition when Axios Detroit featured the shop in its Metro Detroit coffee review series, specifically praising its Mediterranean bagel loaded with labneh, za'atar, cucumber, mint, and olive oil.
Landing In The Self-Declared Coffee Capital
Monday Coffee Club's expansion is unfolding inside a city that has staked its identity on caffeine. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud officially declared Dearborn the “Coffee Capital of America” in November 2025, citing the city's exploding concentration of independent coffeehouses and national roast chains, according to Food Manufacturing. Within its 24-square-mile city limits, Dearborn hosts more than 45 coffee shops, one of the highest concentrations of specialty cafes per capita in the Midwest, according to Fresh Cup Magazine.
That density traces back to 2017, when Qahwah House opened the first authentic Yemeni specialty coffee shop in the U.S. in Dearborn, spawning a local movement in which three Dearborn-headquartered coffee brands now operate 121 locations across 14 states, per Food Manufacturing's reporting. Hoodline has previously reported on how that wave produced its own breakout success story, detailing how Dearborn-born Haraz Coffee House grew into a $70 million franchise empire. While most of that fame has centered on sit-down Yemeni coffee houses, Monday Coffee Club has carved out a different niche by pairing specialty-grade, scratch-made coffee and Mediterranean-inspired food with commuter drive-thru convenience.
The suburban push also fits a broader real estate pattern taking shape along Michigan Avenue, where local coffee brands are increasingly claiming space once built for national chains. The Detroit Free Press has reported that local concept Moka & Co took over a former Starbucks tunnel drive-thru in East Dearborn, a sign of local operators repurposing corporate drive-thru real estate across the region. Michigan residents consume more than 2.5 cups of coffee per day on average, ranking the state above the national per-capita consumption rate, according to Fresh Cup Magazine, a demand curve that helps explain why local drive-thru concepts are betting on growth beyond Dearborn's city limits.
