Signage has gone up at Federal Plaza in Rockville confirming that Haraz Coffee House is opening a second Montgomery County café inside the long-vacant former Seven Seas Restaurant space at 1776 E. Jefferson Street. It's a notable return to life for a storefront that sat empty for years after the seafood restaurant shut its doors.
According to The MoCo Show, Seven Seas operated at Federal Plaza for 33 years before closing in May 2018, and Haraz will be the first tenant to occupy the space since then. The café will sit on the side of the shopping center where DMV Iron Gym is located, the outlet reports. No opening timeframe has been announced for the Federal Plaza location, and the outlet notes that even a Haraz representative who confirmed the Rockville café last month did not know the specific address at the time.
Burtonsville Was Just the Beginning
This won't be Haraz's first stop in the county. The chain made its Montgomery County debut in early 2026 at Burtonsville Crossing, 15701 Columbia Pike, the same report notes. Haraz serves Yemeni-inspired coffee, tea and desserts, blending traditional flavors with modern café favorites, and the publication's staff said they sampled an iced mufawar, red tea, saffron latte, Biscoff milk cake, and a Dubai mosaic cake and Biscoff flavors during a visit to the Burtonsville shop.
Haraz began in Dearborn, Michigan, where founder Hamzah Nasser opened the first café in 2021. The company says Nasser built the concept to share Yemeni coffee culture and heritage, pairing that focus with a contemporary café format. That origin makes the Rockville shop part of a broader effort to bring Yemeni coffee traditions to customers beyond the chain’s Michigan roots. Haraz’s account of its founding describes the first Dearborn café and Nasser’s goal.
The Federal Plaza announcement lands amid a broader wave of new coffee and tea shops opening across the county. Bethesda Magazine counted eight coffee and tea shop openings in Montgomery County over the three months before October 23, 2026, concentrated mostly in Silver Spring and Rockville, as the outlet put it, “A slew of international coffee houses and boba tea shops have opened their doors in Montgomery County over the last three months.” Among them, Westfield Wheaton mall gained a new café kiosk with the recent opening of Tyafé, whose menu includes a Biscoff Cookie Butter Matcha, per the same report.
The expansion is part of a fast-growing niche nationally: the number of U.S. cafés run by six major chains serving Yemeni-style drinks rose 50% in 2025, reaching 136, according to Technomic data cited by the Associated Press. That count excludes smaller chains and independent cafés. Many Yemeni coffeehouses also serve as evening gathering places, with some staying open late, extending their appeal beyond daytime coffee runs. The Associated Press’s account of the trend describes the rapid growth and late-night café culture.
A Chain on the Move Across Maryland and Beyond
Haraz's push into Rockville fits a pattern of rapid growth. The chain had signed agreements for a total of 12 locations in Maryland, and reported having more than 120 additional locations under development nationwide, according to an earlier report from the same publication. The company has also been active in Northern Virginia, where The Burn reported that Haraz held a grand-opening event at its Ashburn Farm Village Center location, running all day with free samples offered from 6 to 10 p.m., after the shop had already started a soft opening a few weeks earlier. That report also noted Haraz already had a location in Fairfax, with a third Northern Virginia café in the works for the South Riding area of Loudoun County.
Haraz isn't the only Yemeni coffee brand eyeing Montgomery County's two biggest downtowns. Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Co., which the outlet reported has 37 locations across 10 states, has been pursuing potential sites in both Rockville and Bethesda as part of its expansion. Qamaria was also preparing to open its first Maryland location on Van Dusen Road in Laurel, with an opening expected in May, and had a second Maryland site in the works in Columbia with a projected September opening, according to the same publication. Whether the Federal Plaza café or any of these other openings arrive on their original timelines remains to be seen, but the appetite for Yemeni-style coffee shops in the county shows no sign of slowing.
Rockville’s new shop would join an already expanding regional scene. In September 2026, the Washington-area market had nearly 10 Yemeni chain cafés, alongside independent shops, with many located in Maryland and Virginia suburbs. The cafés often draw customers looking for coffee, tea and sweets after dinner, and can serve as social spaces for people who do not drink alcohol. Axios’s overview of the DMV scene notes both the regional footprint and the cafés’ role as late-hour gathering spots.
