mkahawa

noun

restaurant; café.

The plural is mikahawa.

Forms

Mkahawa is built from the m- noun prefix plus kahawa, “coffee.” Kahawa is the same Arabic loan, قَهْوَة (qahwa), that gave English “coffee.”

Sources4

A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), PDF page 257.
Lists mkahawa as a coffee-house or restaurant, with a mi- plural. Historical evidence; not a survey of current Kenyan speech.
University of Kansas Open Language Resource Center, University of Kansas Kiswahili Glossary (University of Kansas Open Language Resource Center), mkahawa glossary rows.
Identifies mkahawa as a restaurant.
mkahawa (Wiktionary)
Analyzes mkahawa as m- + kahawa.
kahawa (Wiktionary)
States kahawa is borrowed from Arabic قَهْوَة (qahwa).

Twende mkahawani tukanywe chai.
Let’s go to the café and drink tea.
Mkahawa huu una viti vizuri vya kukaa.
This restaurant has good chairs to sit on.
Alipenda sana chakula cha mkahawa ule.
He really liked the food from that restaurant.
Mkahawa huu una Wi-Fi?
Does this café have Wi-Fi?
Je, unajua mkahawa mzuri wa kifungua kinywa?
Do you know a good café for breakfast?
Ninatafuta mkahawa wa karibu.
I’m looking for a café nearby.
Mkahawa wa intaneti umefungwa leo.
The internet café is closed today.
Kila Jumamosi, mimi huenda mkahawani kusoma.
Every Saturday, I go to the café to read.
Mikahawa mipya imefunguliwa katikati ya jiji.
New cafés have opened in the city center.