Co-owners Feras Ghassan and Saif Alrafati had a vision when opening Oud Coffee & Cafe: The space would exude old-school charm but be a little eccentric, it would be a place where “somebody could come and study, but also embrace the culture,” and the drinks would taste like home.
“We’re trying to go for a more traditional style coffee shop, but the infusion of flavors is like when you would go to your parents’ house and they’d put cardamom in your coffee,” Alrafati said.
The childhood best friends’ new River North venture has managed in a very short period of time to cultivate a community among people craving a place to connect consciously. Since the June 30 opening, many customers have been arriving at Oud’s bright white storefront specifically to support a Palestinian-owned business.
“We’re definitely going to embrace that,” said Ghassan, who along with Alrafati and their other business partner, Shadee Rafati, are first-generation Palestinian American. “We didn’t intend to target (those customers). It kind of just blew up on social media, but we are proud to showcase our culture and heritage.”
Ghassan said the decision to open wasn’t related to what’s going on in Gaza, which is facing famine and collapse as it endures Israel’s ongoing military offensive. But the momentum of consumers showing solidarity is not lost on him or Alrafati, who both expressed being heartbroken for their homeland, but proud that Oud keeps Palestinians close.
Oud, Arabic for “wood,” has a couple of different meanings in Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. The word is used for a pear-shaped string instrument, as well as a fragrance extracted from wood, used for its musky, earthy scent.
Oud is in the 1,300-square-foot former Fabcakes building and the face-lift is hard to miss. A fresh coat of paint and a few olive branch decals in the windows open into a narrow seating area adorned with hanging plants and wall art depicting afternoons on Palestinian terraces. Ghassan said moving into a space already built to be a cafe meant they could open sooner and focus on their craft.
A proper ode to the diaspora, the coffee shop’s namesake specialty — the Oud latte ($5.75 for a 12-ounce) — blends the flavors of pistachio, cardamom pods and fresh mint leaves.
Another drink called tamir hindi ($4.89) — one of many fruit-based beverages made in Palestinian homes — features soaked sweet-sour tamarind, rose water, and lemon juice. There’s also a more familiar mint lemonade with a honeydew-colored hue on the menu ($6.89).
“It’s something you’d just grow up having — something that your parents would make in the blender in the kitchen,” Alrafati said.
“It’s a common refreshment; anytime we went back and visited Palestine we always used to drink it,” Ghassan added.
Oud works with multiple local Palestinian bakers to fill the pastry case with a breakfast pie found in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan called manakeesh, a yeast flatbread made with olive oil and spread with zaatar or spinach ($4.50). They also serve danishes, brownies, scones and kunafa rolls.
One of the hottest items, however, is a take on a viral chocolate bar that took off on social media from a dessert spot called The Fix in Dubai. Reels and TikToks from popular food influencers in the United Arab Emirates biting into an extremely pricey kunafe-inspired chocolate bar gained attention everywhere, including Chicago. Oud’s version at $14 is also filled with pistachio butter and crispy toasted shredded phyllo bits.
Most of the inspiration for Oud comes from Ghassan’s father, who has been a coffee importer for more than 15 years. He’s originally from a small Palestinian village called Ein Siniya, not far north of Ramallah, in a valley surrounded by olive trees.
Ein Siniya has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, when the majority of the population fled, including Ghassan’s father, who moved to Kuwait. He ultimately migrated to the United States.
Ghassan’s father, whose first name is also Ghassan, goes by an American nickname, Jason. He’s owned multiple businesses over the last 40 years, including Lake Point Market in Chicago’s Lake Point Tower. His family also dreamed up Pistachio Sweets in Morton Grove — a popular dessert and coffee destination with house-made kunafa and chocolate-covered crepes — before selling it to different owners.
Each venture had a sweet spot for coffee. Ghassan’s father owns Montiva Coffee, which imports coffee from Guatemala and sources it to 400 businesses across Chicagoland and the U.S., which is why there’s no middleman between the 100% Arabica coffee beans and the lattes baristas are whipping up at Oud.
Ghassan’s father goes to Guatemala’s Antigua region each harvest season with his import partners. They select and buy green coffee beans to bring back to the States, where they roast them before they’re served in cafes such as Oud.
“My dad always shows me videos and pictures of him up in the mountains. It’s just surreal. The coffee that grows up there is literally above the clouds,” Ghassan said. “The elevation is so high and the soil is so rich (you can taste it) in the coffee itself.”
Ghassan’s coffee order is the Oud latte, which he prefers hot. Alrafati loves the honey lavender.
Shortly after the lunchtime rush on a recent Tuesday, before the lull of the early afternoon, customers trickled in every few minutes. Some scoured the space with their laptops to find a table while others waited in line to grab something to go.
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Many of them held up their drinks in front of the shop to snap a picture of the sleeve with the Oud instrument drawn sitting inside a coffee cup with a Palestinian keffiyeh design etched between.
Alrafati said he sees Oud tagged in a lot of those photos on Instagram with a caption that says something along the lines of: “Support Palestinian-owned businesses!” or “Boycott Starbucks.”
Haseeb Hussain, a regular at Oud, does that often.
“On top of being an alternative to Goddess and the Baker across the street, or Starbucks, it was absolutely what people of our demographic — young, affluent Muslims who are in the know of what to avoid — were looking for,” said Hussain, a consumer attorney in Chicago. “A third-party space where we can give our money to our people instead of to people that will more than happily fund the genocide of our people.”
A movement to boycott companies such as Starbucks has fueled the flurry of customers at Oud and other Palestinian-owned businesses around the country. Many consumers have vowed to forgo the coffee giant for its legal dispute with Starbucks Workers United, a union representing some employees, over the union’s pro-Palestinian social media posts. Starbucks official statements have expressed sympathy for innocent victims in both Gaza and Israel.
For customers like Sarah Park, who lives down the street from Oud, the store’s Palestinian roots weren’t the initial draw. But it is a reason to keep coming back.
“I used to come when it was still Fabcakes and I was sad when it closed down, but then this came in and I was like ‘guess I’ll give it a try,’” said Park, who is Korean. “I really liked it. My friend who’s visiting was looking for cafes to work in so I also told her ‘You should go to (Oud), it’s Palestinian-owned.’ That’s definitely a plus to it, and everything they make has been very good.”
Fatima Akilo, a Northwestern University medical student from Houston who moved to Chicago in July, said she wasn’t sure what to expect from the city’s food and coffee scene. She came to Oud with her friend, having never heard of it before.
“I wasn’t really sure if it would be super accessible to go out and find ethnic — for lack of a better term — places and Palestinian-owned, immigrant businesses at that, but it’s right here in River North,” said Akilo, who is Nigerian and Indian. “I will definitely come back.”
Save for a few customers such as Feras Ahmed, Oud’s Instagram account is how most people found out about the spot after it caught the eye of several Chicago-area food bloggers.
Ahmed, who came to Oud with Hussain to grab a coffee and spend an hour or two co-working, said he’s not on social media, but heard whispers of the coffee shop in his friend circle.
“The moment we’re in now, it just feels nice to have all the same experiences you would have at any other coffee shop, but to have it at a place where you’re supporting people and communities that really need the help and need to feel valued, I think that’s what makes us want to come back,” Ahmed said.
Ghassan and Alrafati pointed out the abundance of Middle Eastern, or Muslim-owned coffee shops in the suburbs — namely on Roosevelt Road in Lombard or 87th Street and Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview — that are serving similar flavors and drawing similar crowds looking for Muslim-owned places.
But Oud’s location in the city makes it accessible to people who wouldn’t typically find themselves in those suburban nooks.
“Even with our clientele you’ll see a big mix of everything — it’s not just Muslims coming in,” Alrafati said. “We actually serve a good cup of coffee so people have been coming in on their morning commute or after because our hours are really different from most coffee shops in the city.”
Oud is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., whereas most coffee shops in Chicago close around 4 p.m. It’s one of the reasons Alrafati said they aren’t worried about sustaining Oud’s popularity, even as some places that go viral can struggle after the initial hype dies down.
“As business owners we want to have a presence. The other day I asked a customer who walked out, ‘how was everything?’ and she said ‘It was OK,” and I stopped them and asked her why it was just OK,” Ghassan said. “She said the coffee was good — a little milky, ‘but I love the place and will be back.’”
Ghassan told her he’d be right back. “Hold on one second — I’m one of the owners and I want to personally make your coffee again.”
When he returned with her vanilla bean latte with oat milk, she said the difference was night and day.
Alrafati said nothing will ever satisfy every palate, but it’s important to make sure baristas are trained to make each cup how it’s meant to taste.
It is evident this is a passion project, especially for Ghassan, whose main source of income is a corporate job he asks not to speak much of so he can keep his two worlds separate.
Ghassan likes the idea of complete strangers walking into Oud and entering this collective space of culture and comfort. Maybe they came to support Gaza, or maybe it was simply to sink into a good cup of coffee. Maybe it’s for the viral Dubai chocolate, maybe the stunning white exterior was just too charming to walk past. His only hope is that they stay awhile.
“We want it to be like you’re at home.”
Oud Coffee & Cafe, 714 N. Wells St. Chicago, (312) 763-6168, instagram.com/oudcoffee.cafe