By Annie Prafcke
Sept. 26, 2020
Denver, CO – Café Miriam, a French-Moroccan café and restaurant located in Denver’s City Park West, is owned by Touhami ElFahdi, a Moroccan immigrant and father of two. After his graduate studies in Mathematics and Operations Research at the Colorado School of Mines, ElFahdi worked at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston before traveling the world on various oil and gas consulting contracts. Three years ago, he settled back in Denver to spend more time with his kids, opening Café Miriam with his son Jamil and his daughter Miriam, who also inspired the café’s name. “She is the brain behind this operation,” ElFahdi says of Miriam. “She designed the whole space . . . She wanted to make it very welcoming to everybody regardless of who the customer is or how much money they have.”
Family, which ElFahdi describes as the “focal point of his life,” inspires his business. Café Miriam primarily serves the cuisine ElFahdi grew up eating. Although a professionally-trained chef now does most of the restaurant’s cooking, many of the dishes are drawn from the recipes ElFahdi learned in college while homesick and craving his mother’s Moroccan food.
Sharing food was also important to ElFahdi’s family growing up. “I do not recall a day in which we did not have someone eating a meal with us, be that a guest, be that a colleague of my dad’s, be that a friend of my siblings . . .” he explains. His mom especially enjoyed hosting dinner parties and was meticulous about the placement of each dish and the presentation of the food, claiming, “We eat with our eyes.”
This focus on hospitality explains why Touhami ElFahdi treats everyone who enters his restaurant like family. He can often be seen waving to neighbors as they cross the street, offering biscuits to dog owners walking by, or chatting with customers as they enjoy their morning coffee. Café Miriam is a part of the community, and ElFahdi attests, even a place where neighbors who have never spoken to each other before become friends. He hopes to create a welcoming environment for kids and families in Denver, which is why he goes out of his way to spread joy to all who arrive, even dressing up as Fred Flinstone for Halloween and inviting Santa Claus around Christmas.
Providing the experience of feeling cared for and appreciated, just as his family provided for him, is what is most important to ElFahdi. And it’s what makes Café Miriam so unique. “Money comes and goes,” he says. “But experiences to customers, I think that is part of what drives us.