Tag: cafe

  • Food, Community Meet at Bellmont Caffe

    A few minutes after the bread vendor arrived at Bellmont Caffè, owner Rachid Smairi and his staff were discussing the merits of Greek versus Moroccan cuisine, their voices building with good-humored passion.

    “See, this is why I come here every day,” said customer Patrick Grasso, tilting his head toward the animated conversation.

    Even on the cafe’s quietest days, it hums with friendly chatter. Most of it comes from Smairi, who rotates between delivering food and welcoming customers. He jokes with a group of regulars about keeping a camel in the back of the restaurant. Recently, he surprised a new patron by bringing up the specialized bagels he imports from Montreal during a conversation – the same bagels the customer raved about to his family after a recent work trip.

    Customers say Smairi’s eight years of dedication to consistent, quality food and service have transformed Bellmont Caffè from a coffee shop into a community meeting place. Many regulars view the restaurant as a home away from home, and Smairi says it’s his life’s work to keep it that way.

    “I feel like I’m here for a purpose, not to just sell coffee,” he said. “If somebody is going through some difficulty, and there is something I can provide and do, I won’t even think twice. I will do it for them.”

    Smairi’s passion began during his childhood, as the youngest of 12 siblings in Casablanca, Morocco. He spent much of his youth working in the kitchen with his sisters, mixing handmade whipped cream and learning how to make cakes from scratch. He adored cooking and eating homemade food, knowing the effort and love his family put into each dish.

    “I grew up in that house loving these things,” he said. “That was the main source of me falling in love with the kitchen and forming a connection with cooking.”

    That passion inspired him to do more with food after he won his country’s lottery program, which allowed him to immigrate to the United States in March 2001 and eventually become a citizen in 2006. He began working in the food industry, but in 2003, he decided to pursue his new interest in restaurant operations.

    “I got to try something different … which is dealing with customers and day-to-day operation with employees, scheduling, food, ordering, and all of that,” he said. “I loved it.”

    Over 14 years, Smairi worked his way through Boston’s coffee scene, from a Huntington Avenue cafe to a Starbucks at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston to the Starbucks at the Prudential Center’s Barnes & Noble to a Dunkin’ Donuts in Belmont. After seven years there, one of his customers, Paula Carter, shared some insider information: The original owners were planning to sell the Bellmont Caffè. Soon after, he approached co-owners Minas Daldalian and Raffi Megdesyan, and they made a deal. Smairi became the cafe’s owner in March 2018.

    After picking up the keys, he shifted the cafe’s atmosphere in a Mediterranean direction, an homage to his homeland.Smairi’s love of homemade food animated his imagination and led to a curated menu featuring international cuisine. He gushed to a customer near the kitchen about the specialty waffles he imports from Belgium, then dipped behind a curtain and brought out two egg croissant sandwiches for a couple of regulars, and a crepe for another. Smairi says finding good food for his customers is something of an obsession. Even on vacation, he tries to bring food back to serve at the cafe.

    “We try to get a little bit of every place to make sure that the happiness of the customer is met,” he said.

    That goal extends to how he interacts with his patrons. If he can’t help someone, he tries to connect them to someone who can. He helped one customer who lost her job in the medical field get an interview by connecting her to another customer in the same profession. He introduced a couple to his mother in Casablanca so they could share a meal with her during their trip to Morocco. He offered to walk a 90-year-old woman to the cafe.

    “People can come here once every few months, and somehow he will remember, ‘How’s your kid doing in school?’” Grasso said. He started coming to the cafe four years ago and, after meeting a group of regulars, he has been coming consistently ever since. “He’ll have questions about them even though he hasn’t seen them for six, 10, 12 months … I find that amazing.”

    Over time, Smairi built a community of customers from all walks of life – construction workers, Harvard professors, doctors, professional athletes such as Boston Red Sox outfielder J.D. Martinez, and politicians such as Mitt Romney. The reason each person returns differs, but the community aspect is central to most people’s reasoning.

    “I feel like there’s a good vibe in this place that isn’t reflected in other places that are more corporate or chain in the town,” said William Valentine one recent afternoon. “My mother’s boss, (state) Sen. (William) Brownsberger, does a lot of meetings here outside because of the outdoor aspect and because of the community that’s been developed by the owner. A lot of places aren’t like that.”

    The cafe’s liveliness and warmth attract long-time regulars such as Linda Bragman and her group of friends back again and again.

    “I live by myself. I met these friends here for the last four years. We’re like family,” Bragman said, looking at the group. “But Rachid, he’s just a wonderful shopkeeper. It’s not like when you’re walking into Dunkin’ Donuts, you go and you leave. This is like home.”

    Customers have reflected his effort and positivity over the past eight years. During the coronavirus pandemic, neighbors stopped by to support the cafe financially, buying $300 to $400 gift certificates to use in the future. That support got the business and Smairi through the pandemic. Another time, an anonymous customer left a letter on the counter addressed to “Rachid, Bellmont Caffè,” thanking him for helping her through a hard time.

    “I was going through a very difficult time and you were there for me,” the note reads. “That’s not usually me, but at that period it was and I felt your positivity and love… It helped me a lot in that period.”

    Smairi said the woman left $100 in the envelope and signed the handwritten letter, “a customer.” He plans to keep both.

    “It just touched my heart a lot,” he said.

    The most recent form of support came in the mail in July 2025 – the Best Coffee Shop of Belmont Award. According to BusinessRate, which sponsored the award, the prize is “earned not by application or nomination, but by the authentic feedback of (its) own customers” who wrote Google reviews.

    “It’s nice to hear your effort has been noticed,” he said. “And, you know, it gives you a battery recharge of doing more and more and more, and it keeps that excitement going. It’s only going up and up.”

    Smairi hopes to eventually own the property and expand the cafe. Until then, most weekends will be filled with customers crowding into the small space, drinking warm beverages, dining on Smairi’s curated selection of food, and connecting with one another.

    He says he loves every second, and a recent gesture suggested he is sincere.

    After enjoying his first meal at the cafe, the bagel-loving customer placed his dishes at the main counter. Smairi asked him to wait a moment and disappeared into the kitchen. He emerged moments later with a bag of the man’s coveted Montreal bagels. Smiling, Smairi passed the gift to his customer.

    This story was written by a journalism student in BU’s Newsroom program, a partnership between the university, The Belmont Voice, and other news organizations in the Boston area.

  • Across Cultures, Over Coffee: The Fika Spot’s Recipe for Community

    The griddle hisses and a sweet-savory aroma blooms. A beef veggie fried bun rises from the pan, balanced on a spatula, its blistered crust puffed and golden from the heat. At the counter, a barista calls out a tiramisu mocha, a dusting of chocolate powder melting into the cream and coffee below, leaving a faint mustache across the glass.

    For a moment, the intimate café settles into the calm it was built for: a pause, a sip, a bite, a chat.

    Tucked in downtown Waltham, just across from Waltham Common, The Fika Spot takes its name from the Swedish ritual of fika, the daily habit of stopping to share coffee with company.

    Inside, Jessie Ling and Kevin Zhang, a husband-and-wife team originally from Shanghai, dance through the narrow space, stepping from griddle to espresso machine to counter with practiced precision. Their menu is part Europe, part Shanghai, mostly Waltham.

    Long before opening the café, Ling and Zhang built their own rituals around food. She once worked in private banking in China, where many of her clients, despite busy careers, spoke with surprising passion about cooking and eating well.

    “Watching them, I realized food was more than fuel,” Ling said. “I started to think of myself as a foodie too.”

    Before they had children, Ling and Zhang traveled several times a year, chasing new flavors and then staging playful contests at home to see who could best recreate the dishes they had discovered around the world. About eight years ago, after their son was born, they settled in Waltham. Now in their early 40s, the couple turned that passion into something more permanent.

    A place that feels like home

    Ling said she and her husband set out to create more than just another coffee shop. “We wanted a place with warmth,” she said, “somewhere people can slow down, talk and feel at home.”

    An eclectic hospitality radiates from the space. Near the entrance, the walls are painted blue, hung with vintage posters, and a side table is cluttered with straws and stirrers. Near the front door, a Donald Duck figurine greets customers as they walk in. Further in, the blue walls give way to exposed brick. A small white shelf holds a teapot and cups painted with blue Chinese landscapes. Nearby, panels of smiling flowers by Japanese contemporary artist, Takashi Murakami, hang on the wall. The mix feels less like decoration than layers of memory, giving the café the texture of a lived-in room.

    Ling said two customer moments have stayed with her. “An Italian regular once told me our espresso tasted like the first cup his grandfather let him try in the North End,” she said.

    Another involved an American who had studied in Wuhan, China. He noticed the Chinese sign for fried buns and joked with her about a missing character. “Those little moments remind me a café can carry people’s memories as much as it carries food,” Ling said.

    The menu tells a similar story. The beef veggie fried buns are crisp on the outside and tender inside, based on a Shanghai family recipe that Ling and Zhang adjusted until the seasoning worked for both first-time visitors and regulars. Pan-fried dumplings are served with Italian truffle sauce instead of soy. At breakfast or brunch, customers can choose a Danish, croissant or order a Chinese savory crepe, known as jianbing. Each item is designed with the same goal: familiar enough for some, approachable for everyone.

    Why Waltham?

    Zhang said they chose Waltham not because it promised the most foot traffic, but because it felt like a community.

    “In places like Newbury Street in Boston, you mostly get visitors,” he said. “Waltham doesn’t have that kind of heavy foot traffic. But that’s the point. You build connections here. You pick up your kid, run an errand, and you start recognizing customers’ faces.”

    For Zhang, the choice had less to do with business calculations than with instinct. Waltham simply felt like the kind of place where a café could belong.

    In the early months, many customers were Chinese or Asian families who stopped in for a taste of home. As the café settled in, the crowd began to shift. Now tables hold a mix of neighbors pecking on laptops, parents splitting a bun with their kids, and office workers stopping by for a quick espresso.

    “That’s how a café becomes part of a neighborhood,” Zhang said.

    Newcomers keep showing up – neighbors curious about the buns, commuters grabbing coffee, friends introducing each other to a spot they’ve just discovered. The talk inside rarely strays far from the everyday: the weather, looming deadlines, where to find parking, but Zhang says the effect is cumulative. Over time, those small exchanges pile up, turning the café into a place people return to not just for food or coffee, but because it feels familiar.

    That homespun vibe is what struck Rachel Keegan, a graduate student who moved to Waltham this fall. She said she found the café by accident and returned the next day.

    “It doesn’t feel like just another café where you grab a drink and leave,” she said. “Here it feels like people actually know each other. Even as someone new to town, I felt welcomed right away.”

    That experience, Ling said, is exactly what she and her husband hoped to build.

    “Surprise me today”

    Asked to describe The Fika Spot in three words, she chose “inclusive, innovative and practical.”

    “The innovation is quiet, small adjustments that make traditional recipes a good fit for first timers,” Ling said. “The practicality is even simpler: being steady, taking things step by step, and showing up every day.”

    She said that spirit is modeled by the staff. Lucy Wang, a senior at Bentley University who works part-time at the café, said what struck her most was how quickly she felt at home.

    “It feels more like joining a family than a job,” Wang said.

    She said that feeling carries into her interactions with customers. Staff often know a regular’s order before they reach the counter.

    “Sometimes we’ll see someone walk in and say, ‘Still the same?’ and they’ll laugh and nod,” said Wang.“ Other times a customer will playfully ask, ‘Surprise me today,’ and we’ll pick a pastry or try a new tea for them. Little things like that make it feel personal.”

    Over time, that familiarity creates room for flexibility. Regulars sometimes ask for things off the menu, and the kitchen will try if it feels right.

    “Once, a longtime customer asked for steak,” Zhang said, laughing. “Of course it’s not something we usually serve. But when people come back again and again, you want them to feel at home. If we can manage it, we try.”

    One step at a time

    Preserving that atmosphere has not always been easy. In the first months, Ling said, the café faced sharp online comments that were hard to take. Some customers complained about long waits on weekends or that the beef veggie buns sold out before noon. Others questioned whether the buns tasted “authentic” enough. 

    A few critics faulted the café for serving jianbing (a Chinese breakfast crepe) without a full mung-bean batter, while others expected soy sauce with the dumplings instead of the truffle sauce.

    “At the beginning, it really stung. I would read a comment at midnight and then not sleep,” Ling said.

    She and Zhang made changes where they thought it necessary. They tightened their griddle timing, adjusted seasoning and offered sauces on the side. More importantly, they let the voices in the café guide them, instead of letting online reviews dictate how they felt.

    “You can’t please everyone,” Ling said. “If you do the work, choose good ingredients and get each step right, people taste it, and they return.”

    As for growth, Zhang doesn’t rule it out. But if it happens, he said, they will take it slowly.

    “We’re not trying to open five more locations,” Zhang said. “The goal is just to keep this place personal, small enough to know people’s faces, and comfortable enough that it still feels like home.”

    At its heart, fika is a ritual. At The Fika Spot, he said, the tradition doubles as a daily plan: keep the coffee strong, the buns fresh and greet people by name. The rest takes care of itself.