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Griffin Lounge offers coffee experiences designed to be savored slowly.
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(From left) Team member Theresa Wilkinson, owner Faris Sanabani, chef Brandon Wilkinson, General Manager Alina Hedberg, team member Sam Sanabani and pastry chef Mohammed Conli of Griffin Lounge
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Griffin Lounge is located in a historic former Trailways bus station in Petersburg.
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Large booths line the cafe.
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Seating areas inside Griffin Lounge
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Many parts of the historic building remain unchanged, such as the bathroom doors.
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An ornate coffee service at Griffin Lounge
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Memorabilia from the old bus station
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An antique vehicle parked outside the cafe
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The cigar lounge attached to Griffin Lounge. Sanabani also owns the Griffin Cigar shop and lounge at Stony Point Fashion Park in Richmond.
Entrepreneur and Yemeni native Faris Sanabani hadn’t planned on opening a coffee shop in one of the state’s most iconic historic buildings. When the cigar aficionado with 25 years in the business came to scout properties in Olde Towne Petersburg, he thought he would be securing a space for his second cigar lounge. But since the new venture opened in January, the original plan has percolated into something much more layered and aromatic.
Located at 108 E. Washington St. in a former Trailways station, Griffin Lounge is a Middle Eastern-influenced, experience-driven, all-day cafe specializing in coffee and housemade pastries. There is also an attached cigar lounge, complete with its own ventilation system.
“We had to create a destination. The only way to succeed is to create a destination, and that’s what’s happening,” Sanabani says. "Each experience we offer is different coffee, different beans, and unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere.”
“Experience” is a word you’ll hear Sanabani say often as he enthusiastically buzzes around the cafe. Since opening the cafe at the beginning of the year, he and his team have been slowly breathing life back into the landmark that was built in 1946. Upon entering, aromas waft through the air, guests cozy up in big cushioned booths, and it seems each customer knows the owner and baristas by name. Perhaps that’s because patrons at Griffin Lounge are encouraged to linger. While the drink menu lists standards including cortados, cold brews and lattes, it’s the section titled “Coffee Experiences” — featuring a friendly note that each preparation will take about 10 minutes — where the cafe truly excels.
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Green, unroasted coffee beans. Griffin Lounge sources beans from Yemen and roasts them in-house.
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The roaster inside Griffin Lounge
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Turkish coffee being steeped over sand
Embracing a slower approach to enjoying coffee, Sanabani wants guests to understand the varying levels of acidity, take in the fragrant aromas, and savor the delicate flavor profiles that each brewing method presents and how they can evolve from sip to sip. In a world of trendy, Instagrammable specialty sips and drive-thru coffee, Griffin Lounge is more about sensory immersion, savoring the process and building community.
“And that’s the art that’s missing,” Sanabani says. “Everything is go, go, go. ‘OK, grab your coffee. OK, bye, honey.’ But to take time to come and sit in a beautiful place, go through the experience, talk about it — that is going to take the experience to a different level.”
That take-your-time ethos is the hallmark of Griffin Lounge. Coffee experiences include everything from a classic V60 drip, a slower method that leads to clean, nuanced flavors, to Turkish coffee steeped slowly over sand, using gentle heat to coax out complex, bold notes.
For those looking for something more delicate, there is the dallah, a traditional green coffee beverage infused with ginger and clove and served with dates and a sprinkle of sesame seeds, or the Waw Shot (a play on guests’ “wow” reactions when trying it), a smooth and luscious coffee infused with honey and evaporated milk and served over ice.
Flights offer guests the chance to try four different coffee or tea options, including qishr, or coffee husk, a traditional Yemeni drink made from the outer layers of the coffee cherry and often steeped with cinnamon, cardamon or ginger. Describing it as similar to green tea and with a distinctive taste, Sanabani says. “The husk is the No. 1 drink in Yemen. They don’t drink the coffee, they drink the husk.”
Other sips include a golden tea spiked with clove, cinnamon and cardamom; Yemeni coffee; caffeine-free herbal hibiscus tea; and minty Moroccan tea.
While the Arabic coffee pots scattered throughout the space and Yemeni coffee roasting feel natural for the vision, Sanabani reveals that this was all a happy accident. His initial plan was to open a cigar lounge and offer espresso drinks, but after being told it would be a month before someone could service his newly purchased espresso machine, he pivoted.
“We started with the experiences while waiting for the machine, and guess what happened? They became so popular that the machine is just a nice decor,” Sanabani says. “We started with the specialty, then we went into the experience, because people love it. The most beautiful thing about these coffee experiences, and what is inspiring, is the sense that when one door closed, another opened.”
The slower side of coffee is familiar for Sanabani. Before emigrating to the United States in 1983, he grew up in Yemen, where the brewed beverage is at the forefront of the country’s culture and agriculture. It’s used as a greeting and goodbye, and a way to foster connection. Sanabani spent his childhood watching his grandmother prepare husk coffee.
“I reached into my roots and started to remember, my grandmother used to do this,” Sanabani says. “In Yemen, coffee is a culture, it’s a daily thing; we’re about guests and friends, so when they come in, we serve them coffee.”
Sanabani has established this same ethos at his Petersburg cafe. Griffin Lounge sources organic beans from coffee farmers in Yemen, and Sanabani says everything is roasted in-house and incredibly fresh: “From roasting to serving, a maximum of 10 days.”
Part of the cafe’s distinctive atmosphere also comes from the building itself, a time capsule and historic landmark that was originally designed as a segregated space. In 1960, the Trailways station was the epicenter of a series of sit-ins held by the Petersburg pastor and civil rights leader Wyatt Tee Walker, former chief of staff to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Dark spots on the floor from where fires were started during sit-ins can still be seen. It eventually became one of the first integrated bus stations in Virginia.
“I saw the building as ideal for a cigar lounge,” Sanabani says, noting it took four years from acquiring the space to opening it. “But then all the things are additional. Once we came here, the building was beautiful, the history is beautiful.”
Chocolate shaker churek cookies
The cafe also offers a plethora of in-house pastries and other treats from baker Mohammed Conli, a fifth-generation Turkish sweets master who relocated to Petersburg for the position. Find kunafa, squares of golden shredded phyllo soaked in rosewater syrup, layered with sweet cream and topped with crushed pistachios; shaker churek, soft, cakey cookies available in vanilla, chocolate and cinnamon; mini sesame rings; and baklava. There is also lukum, or Turkish delight, squares of sugary confection studded with nuts and best eaten while sipping the Turkish coffee, providing a sweet contrast to the bitter and bold drink.
Other menu items include breakfast sandwiches such as the egg and cheese on housemade croissant, a club sandwich and shakshuka. Many of the employees are Petersburg residents, and the clientele varies from locals to out-of-town visitors.
“Here is just about good energy, beautiful energy, just blessings,” Sanabani says. “When we serve people with a smile, with love, it shows in the food, it shows in the experience. So that’s the idea; that’s the whole concept that we have here. The environment is friendly. It’s just joyful.”
Griffin Lounge is open Tuesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
