Sanaa Cafe

Sanaa is reported to be the first Yemeni cafe in Tacoma and one of only a handful in Washington. That matters practically as well as culturally, because the Yemeni cafe model runs late: this room is open until 11pm most nights and to midnight on Friday and Saturday, hours past anything else written up here so far. The late close is the format rather than a local quirk.

The drinks are the difference. Adeni chai, the milky spiced tea, sits alongside qishr, brewed from coffee husks with ginger, and a Sanaani. There is a Yemeni latte and an Arabic light roast, plus a pistachio latte, a Biscoff latte and an iced rose matcha for anyone easing in sideways. The kitchen is halal.

The pastry case is where the attention goes. Chicken and potato fatayer, cheese danish and croissants at the plain end, then pistachio milk cake, tiramisu milk cake, honeycomb, chocolate pistachio baklava, Dubai cheesecake and tulumba. The room has been described as airy and welcoming.

Adam Selah is named as the local owner and has been reported working on two more locations in King County. Two cautions before a trip. Hours are reported three different ways across three sources, all of them late, so confirm the exact close before a midnight run. And a California company trades under the same name with its own locations; nothing published establishes a connection, so treat the two as separate until someone says otherwise.