Nabala serves activists, fills void in Chicago

A new Palestinian-owned cafe in Chicago’s Uptown has become a hub for the pro-Palestine community — and a target of Zionist hate crimes

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In Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, under the Wilson Red Line train tracks, soothing sounds of Irish music can be faintly heard coming from a Palestinian-owned coffee shop, with large Palestinian and Irish flags displayed in tandem in the window. Those windows have been shattered twice in hate crimes during the past few months of opening. This is Nabala Cafe. A packed house enjoys live Irish folk music organized by Chicago Irish for Palestine and The Irish Music School of Chicago. Patrons engage in friendly conversation over coffee and pots of karak chai–a blend of black tea, spices and evaporated milk.

This vision of a communal third space was conceived by Nabala’s owner, Eyad Zeid, back in 2022. “I grew up drinking coffee at night. A cup of coffee or tea after dinner was amazing,” Zeid explained. 

The significance of coffee houses as a meeting space is also critical to Arab and Muslim culture, according to Zeid. While most cafes in Chicago close early, around 4 or 5 p.m., Nabala keeps their doors open until 7 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. 

“I think that’s just a way to break bread, especially among Muslims who don’t typically drink alcohol,” says Zeid.“There aren’t a lot of spaces where you can just hang out and socialize that don't involve drinking. ”

Ahmed Ali Akbar, a James Beard award-winning food journalist for the Chicago Tribune who previously covered Yemeni cafes as third spaces, echoes the sentiment. Coffee shops have become a cornerstone for the Arab community as a space where people can meet and coexist in one space for different reasons — cultural, social, or political. They also provide an alternative for corporate café chains such as Starbucks.

 “Coffee shops run by Arab communities provide a place where all those conversations can happen, and new groups can meet and come together,” Akbar tells Palestine in America. “What is happening specifically with Palestine organizing, is that it’s obviously strongly being led by Palestinians and Arabs, and so they're being invited into the space of those communities on multiple levels.” 

In July of 2024, Nabala opened their doors to the public. Named after Zeid’s family village, Bayt Nabala, the café was immediately embraced by the surrounding community, especially allies fighting against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, which as of press time has killed at least 43,374 people in Gaza. Israel’s bombardment has now spread to Lebanon, with over 2,000 people dead and 1.2 million people displaced. 

Amidst the horrors, there is a widening cultural need to support Palestinians politically and economically, both here in America and in Palestine. Zeid said he had to double Nabala’s staff after the grand opening because they had a line out the door on the first day. “The biggest reason for wanting to open a coffee shop was to be in the community and have my life revolve around my community,” said Zeid, who comes from a background of corporate sales and market research and has dedicated himself to organizing against the genocide here in Chicago. “It’s a coffee shop…but it was never really about coffee. It was more about supporting the community that I live in as much as I can.”

In an op-ed written for In These Times, Zeid said before opening Nabala, he spent his free time connecting with community members to assist their unhoused neighbors, but he wanted to spend even more  time building community instead of continuing to do unfulfilling work that only fueled the capitalist machine. So, he decided to open Nabala, allowing for daily community connection.

During the student uprisings of 2024, Zeid spent a lot of time supporting the Gaza solidarity encampment at DePaul University. He was amazed by the amount of people being able to live amongst each other with mutual aid. Now, he feels Nabala Cafe is an extension of those encampments, acknowledging that many organizers and cultural workers in solidarity with Palestine  are regulars at the shop.

Like many Palestinian people and businesses in the United States, Nabala has also received racist harassment from Zionists, resulting in a brick being thrown at one of their front windows–the window specifically displaying a Palestinian flag–in the early morning of Sept. 2.

Zeid said an attack on the business “felt inevitable,” pointing to the rise of targeted harassment toward Palestinians and Palestinian businesses since Oct. 7, 2023. But immediately following the attack, supporters showed up in droves. In less than 24 hours, Zeid was able to raise 10 times the amount of money needed to replace the window, donating the surplus funds to the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

“It was amazing how people came out to support,” he said, adding that the support came in many forms, with groups like the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and the Party for Socialism and Liberation Chicago holding respective solidarity events for Nabala, and Pilsen Community Books holding book drives for Nabala’s community bookcases

“Financially helping in getting the window replaced, support with making artwork and beautifying the outside of the space, and just being here, period,” Zeid said, detailing the support the cafe received. “But he’s never felt alone, saying it feels like the same support Nabala has received since its opening. “It’s just amplified.” 

While the initial wave of media coverage from local news outlets helped inform many of the new cafe’s existence, Zeid was disappointed in how media outlets failed to frame the genocide as being a connected issue. 

“I did four interviews that I distinctly recalled using the word genocide, talking about Palestinian genocide, and having that be completely cut out,” he said. “There were other things, too. In the Sun-Times, they changed Nakba into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. What the fuck is the 1948 Arab-Israeli War?” 

The biased and inaccurate coverage made him seek out a more principled outlet and he wrote the op-ed for In These Times after someone suggested he express the events in his own words. “There's so much that still hasn't been expressed, but [the op-ed] was at least more than, ‘Coffee shop vandalized, community came out, it was really nice,’ followed by a story on Israeli hostages.”

When asked about whether there were concerns about another attack or surveillance in the future, Zeid admits that there certainly still are, but added that it was always a concern since opening.

Unfortunately, Nabala would experience another hate attack on the morning of Oct. 25, this time having four windows smashed.

Before the window was replaced, a wooden board painted by local community members with symbolic images was used to fill that empty space left by hatred. Images like a kite flying in tandem with a white dove, the iconic keffiyeh pattern, a key of return, and even a crucifix — a reminder that Jesus of Nazareth himself was Palestinian and that both Christian and Muslim Palestinians have immigrated to Chicago going back as far as the late 1800s — spur feelings of hope and solidarity. 

Since opening, Nabala has become an essential third space for many Chicagoans within the organizing community, hosting many collaborative events with activist groups, like an art exhibition with Al Hub and educational film screenings with the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation. With the recent attacks in Lebanon by the IOF, Zeid says that Nabala is open to collaborating with any organization that wants to host an event in solidarity with the Lebanese community.

Rose, an organizer from Chicago Irish for Palestine, spoke on the significance of solidarity, noting that Ireland and Palestine have historically stood together, due to both nations having colonizers trying to usurp their native land, with Ireland even being the first European Union nation to call for Palestinian statehood to be recognized in 1980.

“In a climate where there's so much repression against Palestinian organizing, and where so much public spaces continue to be further fragmented, it’s refreshing to see someone from the business community who had every motivation to shut up and make money, to be like ‘No, I’m gonna serve the community, consequences be damned,’” Rose said.