Queen Yemeni Coffee

Queen Yemeni Coffee took over the former Starbucks at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Broadway in Uptown, in the ground floor of the landmark Bridgeview Bank building, and opened there on 20 May 2026 as the second location of a business that began in suburban Libertyville. Manager and co-owner Abdullah Monssar told Block Club Chicago that the cafe's name, logo and the mural painted on its wall are all drawn from the Queen of Sheba, the ruler of Yemen and Ethiopia, the two countries where coffee is generally held to have originated. The beans come from Yemen, which was brewing coffee as early as the 12th century, and Monssar framed the offer plainly as an alternative to the American chains: an opportunity, he said, to taste coffee as it came from the place that first made it.

The drinks list is built on that heritage and then extends into the sweet, social-media-facing lattes that have made Yemeni coffeehouses a national category. Traditional milk and cardamom-spiced coffees run $5-$6. The signature side of the menu includes the Queen Spice Latte, made with cinnamon, cardamom and warm Arabian spices over steamed milk; a Pistachio Latte built on roasted pistachio cream; a caffeine-free Turmeric Latte of turmeric, ginger and cardamom; and a Biscoff Latte finished with golden cookie crumble. Teas, smoothies, breakfast items and a dessert case of Dubai chocolate cheesecake, pistachio cheesecake, house tiramisu and chocolate pecan cake round out the offer. Nothing served contains alcohol, and the hours make it a genuine night-out option rather than a daytime coffee stop: the room opens at 5am and does not close until midnight on weeknights, 1am on Friday and Saturday. The corner it occupies, Lawrence Avenue and Broadway, is one of Uptown's busiest crossings, and the arrival of a room that trades from before dawn until after midnight and serves no alcohol changes what is available there once the bars along Broadway have filled. Block Club Chicago reported the planned opening date as 20 May, with hours still being settled at the time of writing; the schedule the cafe now keeps is the one listed above.