There are some people who wear their hearts on their sleeves. And then there is Hakim Sulaimani who wears the motto — De-gentrify your coffee, on his shirt. This quotation is almost a mission statement for the 28-year-old soft-spoken Yemeni ex-pat in Brooklyn. Some 7000 miles away from his native country, Sulaimani is working tirelessly to build an entirely new coffee-based economy for Yemen in his Sunset Park coffee shop.

The Café

Sulaimani is the founder and owner of Yafa Cafe, a lively coffee shop in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sulaimani comes from a family based in Yafa, a district located in Southern Yemen. The Yafa Cafe is filled with deep notes of freshly roasted coffee mixed with the sweet scent of cardamom. The front left wall is decorated with a series of photographs, each depicting a different side of his ancestral family home in Yafa. Another wall is accentuated with woven baskets originating from the same region. The entire café is a heartfelt ode to Yemen with each piece of décor, each item on the menu, and especially with each cup of coffee.

The Motto

For Sulaimani, the mission of his life is clear. He wants to do the same thing for Yemeni coffee that Starbucks has successfully done for Indonesian coffee. When he was seven years old, Sulaimani started to take pride in Yemeni Coffee, after he got to know that Yemen was one of the birthplaces of coffee in the world. That fact stuck with him even during his college time in NYC, where he used to spend lots of time in various coffee shops, only to choose Yemeni coffee as a viable career option. His vision quickly morphed from an online coffee beans business to a full-fledged café, and he opened Yafa Café in 2019. Today, the modern menu of the café includes customer-favorite Yemeni items like za’atar avocado toast, cardamom-brown sugar latte, and some highly popular breakfast burritos.

Chipotle is trying its best to help struggling farmers by opening up a virtual farmers market. The restaurant chain has created the virtual market so customers can buy produce directly from its supply chain.

Chipotle Virtual Farmers Market

The global situation has created a crisis in many industries, with the food sector, in particular, struggling. Due to a lack of customers, restaurants have been unable to open, putting businesses along the supply chain in danger. Chipotle has teamed with Shopify to bring a virtual farmers market online so its customers can support struggling farmers. The restaurant chain is encouraging the farms that supply its ingredients to adapt and turn to technology to survive.

Food with Integrity

Chiptole’s mantra, ‘Food with Integrity,’ is something the chain says starts with its farmers. The farms that supply Chipotle’s pork, beef, cheese, and rice have been included in the Shopify virtual farmers market. By helping out these farms and buying from their virtual markets, you can get restaurant-quality products delivered fresh to your door. Lovers of Chipotle might not be able to eat their favorite meals directly from the restaurant, but with this service, they can have the next best thing.

Make Your Own at Home

All of Chipotle’s authentic ingredients can be delivered to your home, but that’s not all. Chipotle will also be offering classes and recipes to ensure its customers can perfectly recreate some of its favorite meals. The restaurant chain will be posting recipe ideas and inspiration on its TikTok account so you can learn how to perfectly recreate Chipotle’s carnitas and barbacoa.

Chipotle seems to understand that getting back to normal isn’t going to be easy, and businesses all along its supply chain need support. Fans of Chipotle may not be able to get food from the restaurant themselves, but they can do the next best thing and cook using the restaurant’s ingredients.