Ramadan's Egyptian Coffee House

Ramadan's opened on 4th Street SE in Marcy Holmes, next to Maxwell's and a short walk from Dinkytown, with a soft opening on 4 June 2026. It is named for its owner, Ramadan Hussein; his cousin Ali Mohammed has been helping get the room running. The premise is stated plainly in the opening hours: the doors do not open until 1pm and they stay open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and 1am on Friday and Saturday. Mohammed told Racket in July 2026 that "within the Marcy Holmes and Dinkytown neighborhood, unless it's a bar, there's no late night spot" — a gap that matters in a district built around a campus with a large Muslim student population and a large population of students who simply do not drink. The room is decorated with woven lights, camel-and-pyramid artwork and shelves of decorative pharaohs, and it functions as a study space as much as a social one.

The menu is unusually deep for a cafe. The Egyptian section alone carries sahlab, the thickened milk drink dusted with cinnamon and nuts; sobia, the sweetened coconut-and-rice drink associated with Ramadan; carob; tamarind; hibiscus; ginger; and fenugreek. The tea collection lists Shaay Koshary at extra strength, Shaay Fatla, Shaay Bilaban with milk, Somali tea, karak, mint and green. Turkish coffee comes plain, medium or sweet, and Arabic coffee is served from a dallah with saffron or cardamom. Against that traditional spine sits a full modern espresso bar — honey cardamom, pistachio, Biscoff, Spanish and brown sugar cinnamon lattes — a run of iced matcha lattes in strawberry, mango, lavender, raspberry and ube, and a specialty list including the Dubai Mocha, Pistachio Pearl, Golden Mocha, Desert Bloom and Spiced Nectar. Smoothies and freshly pressed sugarcane juice round it out. No alcohol is served. The doors do not open until 1pm on weekdays, so this is not a morning coffee stop and does not try to be — the trade is almost entirely afternoon and evening, and the room turns over slowly enough that a group can hold a table for hours. On Saturday and Sunday it opens at 8am instead, which gives the neighbourhood a weekend daytime option as well as a late one.