A coffee company that started out of financial rejection in 2012 now has a shop sitting on the pedestrian corridor Seattle has designated for its 2026 FIFA World Cup fan celebrations. Boon Boona Coffee, founded by Efrem Fesaha, opened its fifth brick-and-mortar location at the newly built Overlook Walk at Seattle's Waterfront Park, connecting Pike Place Market to the waterfront promenade below.
Fesaha discussed the company's path from a green-bean distributor to a five-location Puget Sound brand in a recent conversation with Don Baker, market president and publisher of the Puget Sound Business Journal, for the outlet's Behind the Business podcast, produced in partnership with Columbia Bank. Fesaha told the publication that traditional banks turned down his early business loans when he first tried to open a cafe, a setback that pushed him to pivot in 2012 and launch Boon Boona instead as a green coffee distributor, supplying unroasted East African beans to local African grocery stores and home roasters, according to Business Impact NW. Fesaha said it took seven years to actually launch Boon Boona as a cafe, and he credited mentors, lenders, and a broader support network for helping him get there.
From Green Beans to a Renton Roastery
Boon Boona's flagship brick-and-mortar cafe and roastery opened in downtown Renton on January 7, 2019, the very same day Fesaha started his MBA program at Seattle University, according to UW Magazine. That timing reflects the grind Fesaha described in the podcast conversation with Baker, in which he said he paused his finance career to build the company while also pursuing his degree.
The company's name itself points to its cultural roots: “Boon” and “Boona” both translate to coffee in languages spoken across the Horn of Africa, with the name combining the word in Eritrean Tigrinya and Ethiopian Oromo and Amharic, per PCC Community Markets. Fesaha grew up in an Eritrean family, and the traditional Eritrean coffee ceremony, which includes roasting, grinding, brewing, and conversation, inspired the company's focus on East African coffee traditions. He has also traveled to Eritrea as part of that connection to the region.
Direct Trade With Women-Led Farms
Boon Boona has built direct partnerships with African producers, and the company prioritizes sourcing from women-owned coffee farms and cooperatives across East Africa, typically rotating two to three women-led farms among its single-origin offerings. The company sources coffee directly from producers in countries including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Kenya, per the same account from Seattle Coffee Gear.
The business also channels some of its profits back into the local community. A portion of proceeds from its Bereka Blend, named after an Amharic term meaning to be blessed, goes to Vision House, a local nonprofit fighting family homelessness. Bereka is a medium-roast blend designed to represent social connection in traditional East African coffee ceremonies, according to Boon Boona Coffee.
Five Locations and a World Cup Spotlight
As of early 2026, Boon Boona operates five brick-and-mortar locations across the Puget Sound region: Renton, Capitol Hill, the University of Washington Book Store, Microsoft's Redmond campus, and the new Seattle Waterfront Overlook Walk shop. The nonprofit Friends of Waterfront Park selected Boon Boona for the waterfront spot through a competitive request-for-proposals process, according to Friends of Waterfront Park.
That waterfront location sits directly along Seattle's official Unity Loop, the high-traffic pedestrian corridor designated for FIFA World Cup 2026 fan celebrations, according to Visit Seattle. Seattle was designated a host city for the tournament, with major fan zones planned along Waterfront Park and Pier 62, and Fesaha has said the company sees real opportunities surrounding the World Cup as it continues growing its retail and wholesale businesses.
Recognition Beyond the Storefronts
Fesaha's profile has grown alongside the business. In May 2022, the U.S. Small Business Administration named him Washington's Small Business Person of the Year and the Pacific Northwest Small Business Person of the Year, an honor that placed him among 10 national finalists for the agency's top award, according to the Redmond Reporter. More recently, in March 2026, local youth music organization Key to Change named Fesaha the recipient of its 2026 Community Achievement Award for his mentorship and civic leadership, an honor presented at the organization's annual spring salon.
Those accolades, paired with the company's expansion from a single Renton roastery into a multi-neighborhood chain spanning educational, corporate, and civic hubs, underscore the arc Fesaha described to Baker on the podcast: a business built slowly, through relationships with mentors and lenders, that is now positioned for one of the biggest civic moments in the city's recent history.
