Growing up in Town & Country, Shamaas Nyazee wasn’t much of a coffee drinker. But he developed a taste for it as an adult, and he started to enjoy the camaraderie of coffeehouse culture. Now, Nyazee co-owns several franchises of Indianapolis-based MOTW Coffee (6507 Delmar) that are part of a group bringing the shop—and its signature Yemeni chai—to the Delmar Loop. The shop is slated to open in April, with daily hours from 7 a.m.–8:30 p.m. Here’s what to expect.
The Menu
Nyazee describes MOTW as a coffee shop first and foremost. It features an espresso menu with cappuccino, americano, cortado, and doppio, along with various regular and specialty lattes, including matcha, vanilla-lavender, caramel, hazelnut, and English toffee. Most of the syrups are made in house—for example, the cardamom, date-cardamom, and rose-cardamom all start with pods that they crush themselves to retain the delicate oils and flavor complexity.
MOTW baristas brew the coffee with small batch-roasted Brazilian beans from Hubbard & Cravens in Indianapolis. “We use a darker espresso road, because we feel that brings out the richness and profile of the beans,” Nyazee says. “Our decaf is a darker roast too, but our house blend for drip coffees is on the lighter side.”
Other highlights on the beverage menu include matcha teas, hot herbal and caffeinated teas, and fruit and herb refreshers.
But perhaps the most talked-about beverage will be the Yemeni chai. Awareness of this unique, milky black tea flavored with spices is growing in St. Louis, thanks to shops like Qahwatea Coffee, which opened in 2025 in Ellisville, and Mocha Point Yemeni Coffee, serving Main Street in St. Charles since 2023.
Nyazee describes MOTW’s Yemeni chai as a traditional version, brewed fresh in house daily. “A lot of places don’t use one of the primary ingredients that’s in our Yemeni chai to make it really different,” he says. “I don’t want to give away the secret sauce, but it has a lot of flavor and aroma.”
MOTW’s food menu is designed to have multicultural appeal. It features savory halal empanadas filled with chicken, beef, veggies, and spinach and feta for heartier appetites, as well as a long list of sweets, such as baklava, date cookies, coffee crumb pound cake, muffins, and honeycomb bread (a Yemeni classic filled with cream cheese, soaked in honey syrup, and topped with black sesame seeds).
Then there are the milk cakes, a broad category that includes basically any cake in which milk plays a central role in flavor and texture. Flavors include tres leches, pistachio, Biscoff, caramel, and Dubai chocolate.
The Atmosphere
MOTW founder Sajjad Shah developed a strong design ethos from the start. He designed custom espresso machines. The bars are decorated with light-blue mosaic tiles below and bright Turkish lanterns suspended above. The wooden tabletops are crafted by hand, and the murals at many of the locations are painted by Jules Muck.
“We pay homage to St. Louis with a really nice mural that has the Arch and a cardinal on a coffee,” Nyazee says. “We wanted a lively and vibrant atmosphere. We will also have real moss walls to give the shop an aesthetic where people can feel at one with nature.”
Nyazee has fond memories of hanging out in the Delmar Loop with friends while in high school. (He graduated from Parkway West High in 2009.) He feels strongly about giving back to the St. Louis community by establishing a gathering place for students from Washington University, Saint Louis University, and other institutions.
“Having grown up here, I feel like St. Louis is the best city in America,” Nyazee says. The house where he grew up is just a 15-minute drive from the MOTW location. He hopes to demonstrate that “even if you move away and continue to grow in a different community, it doesn’t mean you can’t reconnect to St. Louis after making a name for yourself elsewhere.”
Nyazee intends for the café to become “a safe, inclusive environment for everyone, regardless of race, religion, or other affiliations”—and he feels that Delmar Boulevard is the right location because it has such a diversity of cultures.
The Team
Nyazee’s co-owners on the franchise in the Loop include MOTW’s founder, Sajjad Shah.
Nyazee met Shah after moving to Indianapolis in 2016. Nyazee had studied Islam overseas for six years, and he was eager to meet someone who shared his American upbringing and deep interest in religion. To help normalize Muslims’ daily life in the U.S. and other countries, Shah had started an Instagram page called Muslims of the World, which shares stories of everyday people. It grew to more than 600,000 followers on that platform and more than 1 million across all of its social media feeds.
Shah decided to continue MOTW’s popular online presence in physical spaces centered on coffee, opening his first shop in 2023. Nyazee eventually bought several franchises in the Indianapolis area. The company’s 20-plus outposts now extend from Pennsylvania to Texas and George to Illinois, and it has seen fast growth in additional states, including New Jersey and California.
“If people break bread and site down with each other,” Nyazee says, “they see we have more in common than uncommon.”
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