How bodegas led to the Yemeni coffeehouse explosion | Planet Money

Yemeni-Americans have long clustered in bodegas and small grocery stores, and that business base is now helping fuel a newer wave of Yemeni coffee houses across the U.S. The host and a guest entrepreneur, Hakee Sulammani, use his Brooklyn cafes to show how the trend works in practice: a family deli, family labor, family capital, and a community that already knows how to run long-hours retail businesses.

The episode argues that immigrant business clustering is not random. An analyst, Bill Kerr, says groups tend to cluster when they are smaller and more socially connected, because those networks pass along practical know-how, customer leads, and help with financing. He also says clustered entrepreneurs can earn more than they might in other self-employment or wage jobs. The show compares Yemenis with Vietnamese nail salons, Gujarati motel owners, and Greek diners to show the pattern is widespread.

Hakee’s story also shows how the next generation can adapt a family playbook. He moved from photography into specialty coffee, but had to solve problems his father’s bodega experience could not: sourcing beans from war-torn Yemen, navigating sanctions, and building a more complex business model. The result is a business that grows out of the bodega tradition while aiming at a different kind of neighborhood third space.