Apt N Coffee is a small business in Cary, North Carolina founded by Ibrahim Darhmaoui and Omar Rezk. Their mission is to spread the story and culture of coffee through the inclusive space they have created.

Coffee is everywhere in the modern world — from casual drinkers clutching their daily cup to connoisseurs constantly discovering new drinks. Originating in the Middle East, coffee is a large part of Arabic culture. Darhmaoui and Rezk founded Apt N Coffee in a combined effort to spread the story and culture of coffee.

“To have an Arab-owned coffee shop in the triangle and to share that part of the story is really important,” Rezk said. “We want people to know where coffee came from and put that at the forefront of everything we do. We want to uphold the values of quality standards of the modern coffee space, but we also want to bring tradition back into it. [We] want people to understand that coffee as a tradition and coffee as a culture has deep roots in a very different part of the world.”

Apt N Coffee is unique in that the founders not only want to bring a story to everything presented, but they also want to create an inclusive area to welcome and allow those in the community to feel safe. 

“Given that this a minority-owned, Muslim-owned coffee shop, having a space where everybody can feel welcomed is important to us,” Darhmaoui said. 

The business was originally a catering company, where Darhmaoui and Rezk would deliver coffee to weddings and corporate and university events. They dreamed of opening a coffee shop — however, the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset in 2020 left them unsure of what to do.

“The whole world was falling apart, so for a moment there it felt like we had to let go of what was happening, but we didn’t,” Rezk said. “As long as there was a drive to make it happen, we made it happen.”

Moving forward, Darhmaoui and Rezk dream of maintaining their goals of spreading coffee’s culture and connecting people to its source. 

“We have a lot of goals and ambitions, but we don’t want to limit it to one specific thing except to keep doing what we love and getting better at it,” said Darhmaoui.

The founders also hope to find new ways to foster collaboration and connection through the coffee shop moving forward.

“Our dream is to keep expanding as we stay in coffee but at the same time, we want to bring everyone with us,” Rezk said. “Coffee shops have kind of turned into places where people go plug in their computer, put on their headphones and isolate themselves. It is very rare now that coffee shops are kind of like collaborative spaces. Something we seek to do with the current coffee shop we have, and for other coffee shops hopefully in the future, is create spaces that are more collaborative where people can come and sit and enjoy each other.”

Stop by Apt N Coffee on Kildaire Farm Road to enjoy a specialty drink and ask the employees about the origin behind different coffee beans.