By Mark Woolsey
East Cobb now has an additional option for coffee, whether it’s a commuter grabbing a container in the morning, ladies meeting for a coffee break during the heart of the day or giggling high schoolers thronging the place once school lets out.
They’re embracing Baladi Coffee, a grab-and-go shop that has staked its business model on a variety of Middle Eastern Coffees and baked treats. Opening August 1, the space run by Sarah and Allen Khatib has attracted all the above constituencies and more. And they feel they’re in the sweet spot.
“It’s very family oriented and it has a lot of high schools in the area,” Sarah says. “We just wanted to really like cater to those schools, the working parents and the staff at the schools.”
In fact, the couple delivered more than a dozen drinks to various close-by campuses, handing them out for employees to sample. And the drinks and word of mouth brought in business.
Opening the brightly themed grab-and-go spot in the Sandy Plains Marketplace at Shallowford and Sandy Plains was just the latest inflection point in a caffeine-infused odyssey.
Growing up in New York, Sarah, of Egyptian extraction, said she developed a passion for various types of brew. “I had a passion for going to coffee shops, trying out new shops.”
Seeking a change of scenery, she moved to Atlanta and worked as a physician’s assistant, then meeting her now hubby Allen, who has a Palestinian background.
Vacationing in one of the most dynamic Middle Eastern cities, a flash of inspiration struck. “I was like intrigued when I went to Dubai and they had the best of the best coffee shops. So, me and my husband actually just decided to take a barista class. That’s really where it all started,” says Sarah.
“So, we came back and put it all into play,” aiming toward their own business.
The couple worked on their barista skills, scouted sites and puzzled out solutions for such problems as sourcing ingredients. It all led to their throwing open the doors in Kennesaw in early 2025. That was followed by Athens, with Sandy Plains being their third iteration.
Just beyond the doors is a brightly themed, yet also efficient-looking, grab-and-go spot and a broad list of drinks with Palestinian and Egyptian influences.
Sarah says it’s not an Arab coffee house, though some have labeled it as such. “It’s kind of like Middle Eastern inspired,” she says.
Serving 30 to 40 different kinds of java, they say their most-asked-for drink has become their vanilla date oat milk lattés–to die for. It’s great when iced, and has almost a creamy type of consistency, going down easily on a hot day, literally good to the last drop. Following closely behind is a vanilla fig latte. One drink that’s more of an acquired taste is adeni chai, a rich milk and tea concoction. “I feel not everyone is used to drinking tea with milk,” Sarah explains.
Seems Ike there’s something for every “caffeine fiend” on the menu, a wealth of lattes with a barrage of different ingredients such as Biscoff and banana drinks. There are espressos, cold brew, chai, matcha and others. They also have a selection of what they call “Wanderlust drinks.” One includes Turmeric from Nepal. There’s also something dubbed a blue lavender hailing from Thailand. Their website describes their menu as “a selection of delicious drinks inspired by countries around the globe!” And what they call “refreshers” are featured, including strawberry acai and coconut strawberry.
The drinks go nicely with baked goods and snacks from different corners of the world. For example?
“We always have the Dubai chocolate strawberries, the Dubai chocolate croissants. Those are a very big hit for us,” says Sarah. Their pastry case has many other temptations as well, including a variety of croissants, nafte (which they describe as “decadent”) and baklava.
The word Baladi translates to “homeland.” And the Khatibs are hoping their business has found another sweet home in East Cobb.