Starting tomorrow, the coffee hits the cups at Café Nura, the new coffeehouse and hookah bar at 117 E. Lockwood Ave., in Webster Groves.
The café will serve Mississippi Mud coffee and locally baked goods, according to owner Rimla Javed, who added that she may extend the menu to sandwiches and soups for lunch at a later date. Javed is expecting Webster University students to account for a lot of the café’s foot traffic. “When you want to go somewhere and study, there’s no place to do it,” she said. “This is a place for them to go and hang out.”
The décor at Café Nura is “eclectic” and “homey,” said Javed, with funky fixtures such as an electric fireplace, Moroccan hangings with beads, Islamic art and tapestry on the walls, and even a couple hammock chairs hanging in the back lounge.
Javed said she chose the name “Nura” – which means “light” in Arabic – for the association to lighting the hookah. “If I had another little girl,” she added, “I would have given her this name and this [café] is kind of like my second child.”
Café Nura is open Monday through Thursday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday hours, which are still being tweaked, are approximately midday to 4 p.m.
This article appears in Nov 1-30, 2010.