Kefa Cafe

Organic coffee on Bonifant Street for three decades

Kefa has been pouring coffee on Bonifant Street for the better part of thirty years, opened by two sisters and still run as an independent Silver Spring business. The coffee is organic and the shop calls itself an oasis of high-quality organic coffee, which in practice means a straightforward, well-made cup rather than a technical menu: a latte, a hot chocolate, an iced chai. Regulars call it the best-tasting coffee in the neighbourhood, and after three decades that verdict has had time to settle.

Croissants doing double duty

The food follows the same logic, and it is a bigger part of the day here than at most coffee shops. Pastries are made in-house, the croissants come out flaky, and the sandwiches are built on them rather than on a bread list. A toasted croissant with turkey and cheese is the standard savoury order, and a tuna melt on a croissant with chips is the heavier one. On the sweet side there is a cinnamon bun and a coffee crumb cake, both of which people order by name.

That puts Kefa between a coffee shop and a light-meal counter. Breakfast, brunch and a quick lunch all work, and the range stays deliberately short: coffee, tea, pastry, sandwich. The coffee itself gets called rich and smooth by the people who drink it every week, which for a neighbourhood café is the verdict that matters.

Order a latte and a cinnamon bun

For a first visit, a latte with a cinnamon bun is the combination that captures the place. The latte is the plain read on the organic coffee, and the cinnamon bun is the pastry customers name most often. Coffee crumb cake is the other sweet worth knowing, and it is the one that pairs best with a second cup.

Go savoury and the croissant sandwiches are the obvious way in. If coffee is not the point, the hot chocolate and the iced chai both have their following. What holds it together is not novelty but persistence: an Ethiopian-owned neighbourhood café that stayed open through years of Purple Line construction outside the door, kept its regulars, and has since added other locations around Silver Spring without moving its centre of gravity off Bonifant Street.