Egyptian Coffee Shop

25-09 Steinway Street | Astoria | built 1920

Open on the map2 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1997

   Labib Salama opens the Egyptian Coffee Shop as a place to smoke shisha away from home

   Labib Salama, a Cairo native who had worked as a cook and as a laborer with a traveling Sicilian circus, opened the Egyptian Coffee Shop on Steinway Street in 1997. By his own account he mainly wanted somewhere to hang out, because his wife did not want him smoking in the house. For several years the small rented storefront served only him and his friends.

   Source: atlasobscura.com

2. 1997

   The shop opens on a Steinway Street block still mostly Greek and Italian, with one kebab shop

   When the cafe opened, this stretch of Steinway Street was largely Greek and Italian, with a single kebab shop. It later became the center of an Egyptian neighborhood lined with dozens of hookah lounges, and Salama's awning claims the title of first hookah lounge in America, a claim Atlas Obscura calls unclear.

   Source: atlasobscura.com

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All 5 buildings with stories in Astoria