Ibraham Almuntser likes a good cup of coffee. So he turned an 8,500-square-foot space into Ray Mah Cafe, a luxurious coffee shop/cafe with marble walls and floors, elegant modern furniture and lighting, and stainless steel top-of-the-line La Marzocco equipment from Italy.
Walking through the restaurant, Almuntser, 47, points out espresso machines, coffee bean grinders, ice machines (one for cubed and one for crushed ice), and, to top it off, a $75,000 dome-shaped oven for baking bread.
They also are going to roast their own beans at Ray Mah Cafe. “You see there with the glass? We’re going to put the roasters there,” he says.
The cafe at 3895 Hacks Cross Road is slated to open in early May. “We’re going to specialize in coffee, ice cream, and fresh juice,” Almuntser says. “We’re also going to have a full breakfast.”
They also will feature a variety of desserts. “We’re working with a cake designer,” he says. “She will bake and make the sweets here on site.”
Almuntser, who owns the restaurant with Abdul Daras and Yassar Fidel, named the cafe after the coffee-producing region in Yemen. Almuntser, whose family is from Yemen, grew up in California.
“I’m telling you, we kind of went crazy getting this place to look good for students to come do their homework in a good environment. Or FedEx employees to have their business meetings,” he says.
In addition to Yemeni coffee, Ray Mah Cafe will feature specialty coffees from other parts of the world, including Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Africa, and Asia. “This is our first coffee shop,” Almuntser says. “We went in big. We wanted the best of the best coffee beans.”
Almuntser, a local developer with businesses in Mississippi and Tennessee, says, “I’m usually on the real estate part. I invest in the property and lease it. But on this one, I wanted to run it. Just a place to hang out.” Opening a coffee shop wasn’t just a whim. “I had been planning to open a good coffee shop here for the last five years.” He almost bought a spot that once housed a steakhouse at 5000 Poplar, but somebody else got it.
“I did my research and I found out this is also a good spot. We’re in the county, right off the interstate. You have Collierville nearby and Mississippi three miles away. You have Germantown. You have the headquarters of Federal Express.” They began working on the building, which once housed an Applebee’s, last summer.
Almuntser moved to Red Banks, Mississippi in the 1990s. “I came down South to go to school,” he says. “I have my master’s in business. And I decided to stay. I met a sweetheart and I got married. I have seven kids. I have two in medical school.”
He also wanted to open a coffee shop. “I traveled to different states and I saw so many coffee shops,” he says. He also looked at shops in Paris, England, and South America.
Almuntser, whose go-to is “a good Ethiopian mix,” began drinking coffee when he was five years old. Before that, he chewed the sweet, juicy husks that contained the coffee beans from the trees on his family’s farm in Yemen. “You get addicted to having a good cup of coffee,” he says.
He has no plans to move from Red Banks, where he’s a force in the community, having donated money to the Red Banks Baptist Church to build a soccer field on seven and a half acres. He also bought the old Clancy’s Cafe, which he will reopen as a restaurant, as well as the building that now houses a clinic. “It’s called Crossroads Health. We’re going to do the grand opening April 17th,” he says of the latter. Almuntser has also talked to banks about opening branches in Red Banks, and a dentist is considering opening his office there, he says.
He believes in giving back to the community. But coffee is the number one subject currently on Almuntser’s mind. He already has plans to franchise Ray Mah Cafe. “We’re thinking our next location is going to be in Oxford. And we also have folks out of state that are asking to get our franchise. But we wanted to open and see the concept, what we could add, and make it work for the long term before we branch out.”
