Northeast News Staff

Yasmeen Cafe — a restaurant offering East-African and Mediterranean cuisine located at 1447 Independence Ave. — was opened in December 2018 by owner Abdul Rahman Hatimi and his wife, Khadija. 

Named after Hatimi’s daughter, Yasmeen translates from Arabic to mean “Jasmine Flower” — a symbol of beauty, purity and grace. 

Hatimi said the decision to place his restaurant in the Northeast was to serve the East-African community that resides in Historic Northeast. 

“I have lived here for a long time,” he said. “We have a big East-African community here and there wasn’t enough representation in this area. We have three restaurants that are just focused on just the Somali community, but I wanted everyone to taste my food. I created this place for everyone to come in and be able to taste East African food.”

What he loves about the Northeast, he said, is the diversity. 

“It’s a good place,” Hatimi said. “It’s a very diverse, mixed community area. We have Americans, East Africans, Asians, so it feels more at home here.”

Hatimi said Khadija and his cousin help to run the restaurant, and they’ve tried to keep their most popular dishes and personal favorites on the menu throughout the years. 

“The things that everybody wants, people like all the comfort, like the rice and chicken suqaar, the beef steak, goat and lamb, those are like everybody’s favorites, so those are the things that we share,” Hatimi shared with Northeast News.

For those who are new to East-African food, Hatimi said rice should be the number one thing to try because it’s a staple of their diet.

“Some people are not very comfortable with goat because [it’s] different — I don’t know, they don’t like [it] — but the thing is, the goats we use are the young ones, so they don’t have the goat smell at all,” Hatimi said. “But mainly people love chicken a lot, and beef and lamb. You should just try everything, you know?”

Surprising to those unfamiliar with the history of Somalia, Yasmeen Cafe also serves spaghetti.

“It’s a bit different from the American spaghetti and the Italian spaghetti,” Hatimi said. “We were colonized by the Italians.” 

They also make a special dish, ugali, that is similar to polenta, with spinach and chicken, beef, fish or lamb. 

Hatimi said running a restaurant is rewarding, but hard.

“You have to do everything yourself,” Hatimi said. “It’s good now. When we started, it was a bit hard because we had to manually prep, but now at least we invested in some prepping machines and stuff that makes life much easier.”

When Hatimi opened his restaurant, he knew business, but he didn’t know it would be more than a business.

“The customers become your family,” Hatimi said. “So most of the guests here, they come in sometimes to request special things and stuff. So whenever I’m not busy, I’ll always make for them whatever they require.”

Most people who visit the restaurant call Hatimi “dad” and his wife “mom,” even if they’re older than the couple. And they take it as a compliment, knowing those familiarities are reserved for whoever feeds you and treats you like family.

“We just put a lot of happiness in our food,” Hatimi said. “You know, something that you need to try. A lot of people who come here — we have some clients from the court, from downtown, local people — when they taste it, they really like it.”

Doors are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. 

To those who have not crossed the threshold into his restaurant, he gives one piece of advice: 

“Please come in and give it a try. Most of the people who come and give it a try become regulars.”

To learn more about Yasmeen Cafe, visit its Facebook Page “Yasmeen Cafe,” call 816-216-1615, or email yasmeencafekc@gmail.com.